


Narcissa Watchful

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Narcissa Militant [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Crack, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-04-14 10:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14133909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Narcissa will search out the Horcruxes. She will remove the Horcrux from her foster son’s head. She will give her cousin Sirius a purpose in life. She will free her husband from his ill-thought-out allegiance to the Dark Lord. She will do something else then, because that is not enough to fill her life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sixth in a series of stories where Narcissa is an in-demand spy and assassin and Harry’s foster mother. Don’t read this one without reading the others first, seriously.

****“Are you sure we have everything we need?”

“Yes.”

“But what about the mirror?”

“Yes. I’m holding it, Sirius.”

“And the pure water?”

“It’s been taken from a spring and purified by five different kinds of magic. If it’s not pure now, it’s never going to be.”

“But what about—”

“An anxious godfather who keeps delaying the moment when we move the Horcrux out of his godson?” Narcissa cut in.

Sirius blushed, but then he stood up and started stalking around the drawing room, waving his hands dramatically in the air. “Excuse me for wanting to keep Harry safe! I thought we at least had an agreement that his safety matters most of all.”

“Of course his safety matters.” Narcissa watched her words fall in like calm grey rain on Sirius and put out the fire of his worry. If only she could settle all of it that easily. “I also want to make sure that the rest of us are safe, not rushing, and that we don’t do something we might regret because we’re looking over our shoulders until the last minute.”

“Right. Right.” Sirius sat down and breathed.

Harry caught her eye across the table. Narcissa refrained from shrugging. Sirius was angry and upset, still, that no one had caught the Horcrux in Harry earlier, and also that Dumbledore might have known and planned on sacrificing him in the name of ending the war. There was nothing that would help with that until the Horcrux was safely gone. Better to be patient and put up with Sirius’s antics.

“You’re sure about switching my Horcrux into the portrait of your mother?” Harry asked Sirius. His voice had a scratchy noise in the back of it. Narcissa knew it meant morals were coming up. But she didn’t move to forbid Harry to discuss the subject. Harry had been forbidden much too much in his life.

Someone who was an honorary Malfoy, and due to spend the rest of his life with one, should have whatever he wanted.

“Why _wouldn’t_ I be?” Sirius was gaping at Harry a little, as if he thought this was a trick of some sort.

“Because—because she was your _mum._ I can’t imagine ever wanting to do something like that to my mum.” Harry glanced at Narcissa.

Narcissa smiled back and said nothing.

Sirius laughed hard enough that his body quivered as if he was on the rack. “Not everyone’s parents are good parents, Harry. Not everyone’s parents help them or love them or hold them when they cry. To my mother, I was a disappointment, because I rebelled against my family and I didn’t think I was a lord of creation just because I was born a Black. She preferred my younger brother. And her portrait is worse than she was.”

“The portrait must be miserable,” Narcissa murmured then. “We would be doing a kindness by helping it to pass out of life.”

Sirius met her gaze. Narcissa only looked back. She would do what she could to ease Harry’s conscience about moving the Horcrux out of him and into another being. That Walburga’s portrait was the only remnant on earth of the woman was hardly enough to stop her.

And Harry had come to her only last night asking if they really _needed_ to hurt someone else to get rid of the Horcrux. Narcissa was going to get rid of the guilt. Harry keeping the Horcrux for a time was not an option.

Sirius swallowed roughly and nodded, all Narcissa needed to know her message had been received. “Yeah. I mean, my mother was a miserable woman when she was alive, too, but now she’s all alone. My brother is dead, and my father is dead, and I’m the only person she ever sees come through that door. She hates me. She spends all her time screaming about how she wants me to go away and trying to summon our old house-elf to wipe me out of existence. I think she’s forgotten that I’m not a portrait like her, to be honest.”

Narcissa smiled at Sirius. He inclined his head a little.

“Okay. That sounds pretty horrible,” Harry muttered. His face was pale, but he had regained the firm hold on the arm of his chair that Narcissa knew meant they were marching ahead. “I just want to make sure she doesn’t suffer.”

“If my research is correct, pup, it’ll just erase her immediately. A living Horcrux can’t be put into something non-living without destroying them both.”

Harry still swallowed. Then he said, “Okay.”

“ _Are_ you okay, pup?” Sirius’s voice was soft. He leaned over to pat Harry’s arm. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore if you want. We just need to do it.”

Harry hesitated, then shrugged minutely and began to speak of something Narcissa knew he would never have said only a few months ago. “The Dursleys used to talk about me disappearing. They were always wistful about it. Hearing that this is going to erase your mum’s portrait is...not great.”

Sirius looked so angry for a moment that Narcissa thought she might have to restrain him. But slowly, he nodded, and his expression eased into thoughtfulness. “If it helps, remember that she’s just a shard of a woman herself, imprisoned in a canvas, the way the Horcrux is a shard of a complete soul imprisoned in you. She isn’t going to ever grow or experience anything else from now on. She’s repeating the same old hateful patterns without even having company to repeat them to. In a way, getting the Horcrux into her and destroying them both is a mercy.”

Harry didn’t look completely convinced. Narcissa, who knew more about magical portraits than her foster son did, was even less so. But when Harry touched his forehead and said, “Okay” again, she knew he was convinced enough to matter.

*

“MUDBLOODS! BLOOD TRAITORS! FILTH ON THE HOUSE OF BLACK!”

Narcissa shut the front door of Number Twelve behind her and quietly observed what remained of her Aunt Walburga. She had to admit that Sirius had been closer to the mark than she realized. There really _wasn’t_ much left of the woman who once would have greeted them with an icy stare, not hysterical shrieking.

_Or, if portraits really capture the primal essence of a person, perhaps this is what she was like all along, behind closed doors._

“Shut up, you old hag,” said Sirius, but without much force. He was too busy with setting up the bowl of water, the salt, the materials to make fire, and the mirror at exactly the right distance from the portrait. Narcissa was happy to let him. It took someone who had lived in the house for a long time to be sure the arrangements were correct.

In the meantime, Narcissa wandered over to a decaying tapestry on the wall. She shook her head. At least one house-elf was left, but Kreacher seemed to spend his time huddling in corners and muttering versions of the insults that his mistress shrieked, to hear Sirius tell it.

“Filthy blood traitors. Mudbloods in the house. Kreacher does not think Mistress would like it, no, she would not. Filthy Mudbloods make the house unclean...”

Harry stared at the elf who was standing near the bottom of the staircase in a dirty rag, looking a little sick. “He doesn’t look anything like Dobby or the others,” he observed to Narcissa in a quiet voice.

“No, he doesn’t,” Narcissa agreed. “This is what happens when an elf is left alone for many years, Harry. He would be alone still if Sirius hadn’t escaped from prison.”

“If I ever have a house-elf, I’ll never leave them alone.”

Narcissa smiled. “That is the proper way to take care of them.” She knew that one of Harry’s friends, Hermione Granger, had crusaded in the past to take away house-elves from the deserving. She was glad Harry had been infected by true kindness rather than Granger’s nonsense.

“FILTH!”

“Shut up, Mother.” Sirius took a step back from the mirror on the floor and took a deep breath, then nodded to Narcissa. Narcissa strode over to join him.

“I can light the fire as soon as we have Harry in position and the runes drawn on the floor. Be careful, though. Her shrieking is enough to distract anyone from rune-drawing.”

“I don’t intend to do the kind of drawing that will make me have to put up with distractions,” Narcissa said coolly, and drew her wand.

“Cissy—”

Narcissa ignored him and whipped her wand in several sharp circles that she had learned as a child. The parchment spread on the floor, which already bore the drawing of the runes they would have to use to complete the ritual, rose and began to glow blue. It turned in slow circles, corners gradually bending down.

“Mum?” Harry’s voice was a bit breathy, his eyes fixed on the parchment.

Narcissa didn’t turn her head fully, but did feel a burst of pride. Harry had come so far from the scared boy who could barely bring himself not to call her “Mrs. Malfoy.” “It’s all right, Harry. This looks more dramatic than it actually is.”

The parchment swung abruptly down and to the side. The runes drawn on it vanished. Instead, they hung in the air, made of light, replicated from the careful images that Narcissa had spent yesterday making.

“That’s pretty dramatic,” Sirius said weakly.

Even Aunt Walburga’s portrait had stopped shrieking, Narcissa noted, though the fact was distant to her. She spent more time directing the runes onto the floor in the right place than she had removing them from the parchment. Then she had to pace the length of the circle and even lie down on the floor to make sure all the distances between runes and the circle were right. At last, though, she looked up and nodded.

Sirius lingered for a moment before he lit the fire. “What are those made of?” he asked, a little hoarsely, nodding at the runes that still glowed blue.

Narcissa smiled. “Pure magic.”

Sirius stared at her, shook his head, and lit the fire as Narcissa called Harry forwards into position. He stood facing her, and the portrait and the mirror, across the circle. Sirius stepped behind him and rested his hands on his godson’s shoulders.

“I come here today to request freedom for my godson, Harry Potter,” Sirius began. His voice was strong and confident. Then again, that had always been his way when he committed to something fully. “He bears an unfair burden in the shard of the Dark Lord V-Voldemort’s soul that he carries in his forehead. He would shed it.”

“FILTH! You should be HONORED to carry my Lord’s soul!”

No one paid her any attention except for the slight flicker of Harry’s eyes. Narcissa took up the plea. “I come here today to add my voice to his. Harry Potter is my foster son, the companion of my blood son, and my apprentice in the ancient arts I know. This burden interferes with his ability to lead his life happily and learn his magic. I request that he be shed of it.”

The ritual Sirius had found demanded two parental figures, or Narcissa would have done it by herself. She looked straight into Harry’s eyes now and saw how he smiled at her. He had faith in them. Whether or not he _should_ might be a different matter. But Narcissa knew she and Sirius would try their utmost to relieve him of this burden.

The fire flared. Sirius nodded to Harry. “You speak now,” he mouthed.

Harry didn’t forget the ritual words in the solemnity of the moment, either. His hands clenched tight, and he whispered, “I am Harry Potter. Sirius Black’s godson and Narcissa Malfoy’s foster son. I ask to be free of this unfair burden.”

The fire turned purple and gold. Narcissa blinked. She had read about that in the description of the ritual Sirius had found, but she had never realized it would be so bright. This looks like carved amethyst studied with pure gold dust.

“The fire hears us,” Sirius said. His voice was a soft chant now. He reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out an ancient silver knife that he’d found “among the Black treasures.” Narcissa had decided she didn’t need to know more than that. Sirius reached down and sliced the back of his hand with the knife. He didn’t flinch. “And now, may the blood hear us.”

Sirius’s blood hissed like the fire itself as it struck the rune circle. Sirius scattered salt after it, and the blood and the salt clung together in tiny grains of glowing, sacrificial fire. “We will make the circle too pure for the shard of Dark magic. We will free my godson from his unfair burden.”

“We will,” said Narcissa, the required response, and picked up the bowl of purified water sitting next to her feet. She sprinkled it over the half of the circle nearest her. The runes absorbed it and shone like puddles lit by a distant sun. “May the water hear us. The elemental forces have greater strength than anything a single wizard does. We will make the circle too pure for the shard of Dark magic. We will free my foster son from his unfair burden.”

The glowing sparks of blood and salt rose into the air, followed by the whirling blue shapes of the water-infused runes. Harry was staring with his mouth open. Narcissa managed to catch his eye and move her head in a sharp nod.

Harry swallowed and nodded back. “I accept the purification,” he said, holding his arms out. “I accept the blessing of fire and water. I accept being freed from my unfair burden. Take it, _please._ ”

Those last words weren’t technically part of the ritual, and for a moment Narcissa was afraid. But it seemed the magic gathered here didn’t notice them or actually liked them. All the light in the circle rushed into Harry, and he gasped as water ran down his face and sparks danced around his forehead.

Walburga Black shrieked again, but her scream was overridden by another sound, one far deeper and more primal.

Narcissa did not consider herself an evil person. She did what was necessary to protect her family and earn money that would let her protect them even better, and she disdained others who would try to impose moral judgments on her. Outside of those who threatened her chosen ones, she was not sure she would say evil existed.

But this was the pain of an evil thing, a shriek that welled up from the depths of a torn soul and made the house reverberate as few curses could have. Walburga shut her mouth under that cry, and Narcissa could only squint through eyes that watered with tears as she watched a boomerang-shaped piece of darkness fly out from Harry’s forehead and pinwheel through the air, slamming into the portrait.

There was a low _boom_ that shook the house more than the shriek had. Narcissa found herself falling towards Harry, and flung out her arms to shield him from the fire.

Harry wrapped himself around her and toppled them the other way instead. Narcissa landed on the floor and rolled a little to absorb the impact of having her breath driven out of her. Exasperation made her mouth sting. Harry had acted this way because _he_ wanted to protect _her_.

She sat up when she had made sure that Harry didn’t have any minor cuts or burns, and looked at Sirius. He was staring at the portrait. Next to him, the fire had gone out and there was no trace of the ritual circle on the floor. Narcissa turned her head to look with him.

The portrait was a long, jagged rip in canvas that dangled like torn parchment. The inside of the crack seeped with darkness for a moment, and made Narcissa want to look away. But she stared it down, and the darkness faded into ordinary damage to a painting.

“We did it.”

Sirius said the words softly, but there was nothing soft about the shriek he gave a minute later. He leaped to his feet and waved his arms around, dancing in place as he whooped and kicked up his legs and shouted, “Take _that_ , mother! Who’s the filth now? Huh? Huh? _Huh_?”

Harry sat up and reached towards his forehead. Narcissa grabbed his hand before he could touch his scar. It looked inflamed.

“Gently,” she murmured. “How do you feel?”

“Lighter.” Harry said it as though he thought she wouldn’t believe him. Then he suddenly bent forwards and laughed, so hard and so long that Narcissa tipped his face up, fearing that he was becoming hysterical.

Harry simply beamed at her and flung his arms around her. Narcissa hugged him back, and reached out with her senses. Perhaps it was only hope or imagination, but she did think that she felt no Dark magic on him now, where before it had been a constant low hum.

_One Horcrux destroyed. There may be others out there._

_But my son is free._


	2. Part Two

“What are you doing, Cissy?”

Narcissa smiled a little at Sirius as she laid down the carved wooden claw in front of her. It resembled a dragon’s claw, but only superficially. Narcissa had spent hours carefully scraping at it, assembling it so that it bore the delicate tracery of scales and the talons were slender enough to look like the real thing.

Sirius was staring very hard at her. Narcissa spread her hands with an innocent expression.

“That looks like a phoenix’s foot.”

“It is.”

“Tell me that you didn’t kill a real phoenix to get the model.”

Narcissa laughed. “No. I was in close enough quarters with a phoenix at one point to get a good look, and I used the Pensieve memory as the model.” She turned the foot around and spotted an imperfection on the side. She bent down and carefully shaved a fragment off.

“I didn’t know you could carve like this.” Sirius was looking back and forth between her and the foot, his eyes narrowed.

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Sirius.” Narcissa said it lightly enough as she put her carving tools away, but that only made Sirius glare. He leaned back against the wall of the drawing room and looked around as if to make sure that none of the Malfoy portraits were close enough to overhear them—although none of them would have reported Narcissa to the Aurors anyway. They were too thrilled to have someone _proper_ in the family, as they had told Narcissa more than once.

“You killed Dumbledore.”

“Five points to Gryffindor. How many years did it take of you knowing me after prison before you figured that out?”

“I suppose I knew it before. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. He was a good man, Cissy.”

“He would have manipulated Harry straight to his death. Did Harry ever tell you what he and his little Gryffindor friends did their first year?”

Sirius frowned as if struggling to recall it. He might be it, Narcissa knew. While he was taking potions and meeting with private, Dark Healers to get himself back to health, Azkaban had stolen more than his youth. “Something about a stone and they had to protect it. Honestly, I don’t think I was paying attention at the time.”

Narcissa nodded. “Dumbledore hid the Philosopher’s Stone in Hogwarts, as bait for Voldemort. He knew that the Dark Lord wanted to regain his youth and body. So he put it there and waited for him to come after it.”

Sirius was staring at her in horrified astonishment. “But to put that kind of thing in a school full of children—it’s—”

“Mad?” Narcissa lifted her shoulders in a delicate shrug. “I know that Dumbledore had a reputation for both strangeness and great shrewdness. I think the shrewdness was honestly exaggerated during his declining years.”

“So—you think he wanted Harry to what? Stop Voldemort? But how could he know Harry would?”

“The traps that Harry told me about were supposed to stop a grown wizard. A trio of first-years got through them. And anyway, it’s no longer my guess, Sirius. Minerva found papers in his office which confirmed it. He knew Harry was a Horcrux. He planned to have him die defeating Voldemort, to break Voldemort’s hold on the world if nothing else.”

Sirius’s face turned so grim that Narcissa thought it was a lucky thing for Dumbledore that he was already dead. “He was insane.”

“Too blinded by his plans.”

“It doesn’t matter. He was going to put _my_ godson at risk. After he didn’t stand up for me to get a trial…”

Narcissa had no wish to lose Sirius to his brooding. She said briskly, “I have things I have to do this morning. Would you please make sure that Harry and Draco are occupied? There’s going to be Dark magic upstairs and I’d rather they not come near it right now. It would upset them.”

“Even Harry? I thought he was all right with Dark magic!”

“There’s a large difference between the ritual we did to free him of the Horcrux and the one I’m about to begin.” Narcissa picked up the carved wooden phoenix’s foot. “I don’t often ask things of you, Sirius. Please do this one.”

After a moment, Sirius paused, then nodded jerkily and turned away. Narcissa watched him go with faint pity. She mourned what Sirius could have been if he didn’t go to Azkaban.

As she mourned what Lucius could have been if he had not decided to take the Dark Mark.

 _At least it made him accustomed to obedience,_ she thought as she shaved a few more careful pieces of wood off the phoenix’s foot and then started up the stairs towards their bedroom. _That will be a useful habit now._

*

“How can you be sure that the Dark Lord won’t stop you?”

“What did I tell you about calling him the Dark Lord, Lucius?”

Lucius flinched and lowered his eyes as he began to take off his shirt. “Not to,” he muttered, sounding sulkier than Draco could be sometimes.

“Exactly.” Narcissa gestured for him to remove his trousers when he would have paused after his shirt. “This is going to be bloody. Unless you want to ruin that particularly nice set of clothes…”

Lucius winced and pulled them the rest of the way off. Narcissa circled him, admiring him serenely. He was indeed a handsome man. Part of her had chosen wisely.

And the choice was about to become even more wise, as she began the ritual that would free Lucius of the Dark Mark. Or the first stage of it. It would be necessary to do this more than once, and perhaps to vary it as Voldemort figured out what she was doing.

Narcissa scattered a circle of powdered obsidian around her husband, as black as the Dark Mark itself. Then she took out the wooden claw and handed it over to Lucius. “Scratch it over a small part of the Mark,” she said. “No more than a fifth.”

“How am I supposed to estimate a fifth of it when it curves the way it does?” Lucius whined, but he quieted at the look she gave him. He took the claw and considered for a second, then carefully scratched across the blackened skin at the head of the snake. Narcissa nodded when he stopped.

“It’s better to have too little than too much.” She took the claw back and touched the blood that had smeared on the talons to her tongue. Then she threw it from her, because she could already feel the magic from her husband’s blood thrumming through her, connected to their marriage vows and the obsidian on the carpet.

“Kneel down.”

At least he was used to doing that without complaint, and he did, his eyes fixed on her. Narcissa spread her hands. Sparks of dark red glowed at her fingertips, so brilliant that it was hard to focus on them. She could feel the light spreading out around her body, edging her almost in an aura. She turned, and the scarlet trailed her like a cloak. She put down her foot and felt power trembling through it.

“ _Frangere_ ,” she said, and she kept her voice utterly calm, her mind focused on the end result. “ _Frangere. Frangere. Frangere._ Liberare!”

Her voice rose into the shout, and she heard Lucius scream. Narcissa turned around slowly. If she overloaded him with power, then she might end up cooking his arm.

Lucius was staring at his arm, where some of the darkened skin had broken and flaked off. He gingerly traced a finger up it, and then rubbed his fingers together. The blackness turned to nothingness and drifted away, to be absorbed by the sullenly shining obsidian.

Narcissa sank to her knees on the carpet. She knew this would be the hardest time, unless Voldemort figured out what they were doing and took some kind of measure to safeguard the Dark Mark. Now that she had broken one hold of the bond on Lucius, the others would begin to unwind slowly, like the snapped links of a chain. The rituals would merely speed them up.

“How do you feel?” she managed to ask, lifting her head and staring towards her husband with an effort.

“Better than I have in years,” Lucius whispered in a shocked little voice. “I didn’t—Narcissa, I didn’t _know_ how much that was weighing me down.” He looked as if he would have lunged out of the circle and kissed her, but he was wise enough to keep still when the light from the obsidian began to rise.

Narcissa held out her hands. She had discharged the power of the blood with her incantation, but the obsidian’s magic had to go somewhere. She accepted it as it flowed back into her, and grimaced when it stung her fingers. That would be the last remnant of Voldemort’s sullenness and hatred, then.

 _At least, in that portion of the Dark Mark._ Narcissa was wise enough to know there would be other struggles with the remaining pieces of Lucius’s Mark.

When she curled her fingers into her palms, Voldemort’s magic sparked out. Narcissa looked at Lucius and waited. He immediately rose to his feet and crossed the circle of inert dust, his eyes fixed on her.

It had been some time since Lucius had pleased her, with the oppressive magic clinging to him and Narcissa busy with other matters. Now, she lay back on the bed and spread her legs and let him show her what she could do.

Let him renew her memory of some of the reasons she had chosen him in the first place.

*

“I want to help.”

Narcissa looked at Draco’s face and tapped her quill slowly against the parchment she’d been working on, a list of other potential Horcrux locations. “What do you think there is to help with, Draco?”

“I _know_ that you freed Harry. I wanted to be part of that, but Harry told me to stay out of it.”

“And rightly. The ritual is dangerous to magic that hasn’t settled yet, the way it usually hasn’t in underage wizards.”

“But Harry—”

“Had to be part of the ritual as it was meant to remove the Horcrux inside him. Otherwise, I never would have allowed him near it.” Narcissa softened her voice as she saw how shaken and small Draco looked, standing there in the great dining room under the gaze of his ancestral portraits. “What is it, Draco?”

“I want to do _something_ —and you keep hiding it from me and not letting me help—”

Narcissa stood up and came forwards to clasp his hands. “You’re worried about Harry, I know. You want him safe, and you want to know exactly what’s happening with his magic and what he’s learning from me. Is that it?”

Draco paused. Then he said, in a softened tone that was much more mature than she would have heard from him a year ago, “I want to know, but I don’t want to practice it. I know your arts and your discipline are necessary, Mother, I would never be so stupid as to say they’re not. But I don’t want to use them.”

Narcissa smiled. “You don’t have to. Not everyone is born to that kind of hardship.”

“But—you wish I had been, right? You wish you could train me the way you’re training Harry?”

Narcissa blinked at him. “Why would I? I have Harry to train.”

“I mean, if you didn’t have Harry to train.” Draco’s face was a brilliant red, and he turned abruptly away from her and paced towards the far end of the great dining table. “You would have wanted someone to follow in your footsteps, and I can’t do that. But you would have wanted me to.”

“I wish for you to be exactly as you are, Draco. Nothing more and nothing else.”

“You would be disappointed. What—what you have done if Harry didn’t show up?” Draco rushed on, before Narcissa could refute that she would be disappointed. “What if he didn’t have the skills or he wasn’t here? You would have to find _someone_ to follow you, wouldn’t you?”

“Not exactly. It’s not as if this is a business that has holdings and property that need to be taken over, Draco. I would probably have looked for an apprentice once you were grown and had children. I could have used someone else to protect my grandchildren in that case.”

“I—might not have grandchildren now.”

“Oh, I expect Harry will arrange for some by some method. He wants a large family, I know.”

Draco flushed and stood there staring at her as if she had done something extraordinary instead of what she always did. Narcissa raised her eyebrows at him. She wondered if something had happened to make her son question his place in her heart. Of course she loved Lucius and Harry too, but he would always be special to her.

“I—never knew you were like that, Mother.”

“Why would I not be?”

“I mean, I knew you could kill and you were a deadly assassin and you would die for me. But I thought you would care a lot about having grandchildren and you’d be upset that I was with a man instead of a woman.”

“I see that you have mistaken me for your father, dear,” Narcissa said gravely, and watched Draco’s frown turn to light.

But, of course, he started frowning again just a few seconds later. “Father isn’t going to take this well, is he?”

“Lucius shall do exactly what I tell him.”

“But then he would only be taking it well because you told him to. I want Father to take it well of his own free will.”

“When your father is left to his own free will, my dear, he makes stupid decisions like taking Voldemort’s Mark.”

Draco still flinched at the name, but he managed to control himself after that single moment. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Haven’t you learned by now?” Narcissa came over to smooth his hair back and kiss his forehead as she had when he was much younger. He allowed it, staring trustfully up at her with his hands on her arms. “I am always right.”

*

Narcissa opened her eyes, and then opened them further. She had last gone to sleep in the Manor beside Lucius, but this was none of the rooms in the Manor, not even the sealed dungeons that Lucius fondly imagined she didn’t know about. Narcissa walked further into the draped, velvety darkness of this room, studying the tapestries with threads of silver worked into them and the shining ebony furniture.

“This is your prison.”

“You seem to have constructed it more with luxury than imprisonment in mind,” Narcissa said, turning to face the specter of Voldemort in front of her.

He sneered at her. Narcissa considered him dispassionately. He should have taken lessons. He couldn’t twist his lips the right way. “Did you think that my acquiring your blood for the ritual would have no consequences?”

“No.”

That seemed to have interrupted Voldemort’s planned speech, so he scowled at her. “It does.”

“And I said I thought it would.”

“You cannot—”

“I can do anything that I wish.” Narcissa had been watching the black tapestries twitch in an unseen breeze that hadn’t been there until Voldemort appeared in the room, and she wanted to try something. “For example, this.”

Her mind twitched and lashed, and the tapestries lashed with them. Then the room was lit with a miniature sun hanging near the ceiling, and Narcissa lifted her arms and found a lower ceiling a few centimeters from her fingers.

“You cannot manipulate this space! This is mine alone!”

“You need to learn how to guard your mind better.” Narcissa smiled at him and whirled her Legilimency faster and faster. The tapestries blew off the walls in response and began to form a dark wall around her, made of flowing cloth and tassels. “The nature of our connection isn’t like the one you share with Harry. You invited me into a shared space, and I can affect it as much as you can.”

Voldemort snarled, an inhuman sound, and crushing force came down on her, throwing the tapestries back towards the walls and stilling the wind and raising the ceiling. Narcissa fought back, and while she couldn’t make the room assume the exact proportions she liked, the tapestries came back and the ceiling lowered again.

“This is not possible! _I am Lord Voldemort_!”

“You’re a child having a tantrum.”

He hurled a bolt of magic at her, but this was an imagined physical space, and that meant Narcissa could imagine using any of the techniques of her discipline. She disappeared the way she would if she’d Apparated through wards and appeared behind him, then slapped the back of his head.

This time he turned towards her with a hiss of Parseltongue that Harry might have understood—though perhaps not, with the Horcrux removed—and gestured another bolt into existence. This one boiled towards her to strike her in the heart.

Or, at least, that was probably the intended effect. Narcissa interposed a tapestry between them, and it blew apart into floating, charred threads.

“As pleasant as this interlude has been,” Narcissa said, “I must go home now. An assassin needs her beauty sleep.”

She vanished through a hole that she opened in one of the walls, and raised her Occlumency shields high enough that Voldemort would be blocked if he tried to reach her mind again. Then she sighed and returned to regular sleep.

Voldemort would need to be dealt with sooner than she had thought he might.


	3. Part Three

“What are you making, Mother?”

“A list of potential Horcruxes and their locations.” Narcissa frowned at the topmost one on the list. She didn’t know enough about Tom Riddle’s past. While she was almost certain that he would want to make Helga Hufflepuff’s golden cup, the only remaining relic of that particular Founder, into a Horcrux, she didn’t know where he would have hidden it.

“Can I help?”

“Not unless you know more about the Founders and potential locations from Voldemort’s past than I think you do.” Narcissa softened the tone in her voice by smiling at Draco. “Never mind me, my dear. I will solve this problem as I do all the others. What can I do for you?”

“I told Father about me and Harry.” Draco swallowed. He had no actual bruises on his face, but the circles under his eyes looked like them. “He—he wasn’t happy. He said that I wanted grandchildren and I would never have them if I was _mating_ with a man.”

Narcissa stood. Draco fell back from her, eyes wide, and Narcissa wondered why for a moment before realizing that she had probably freely used her assassin grace in front of Draco for the first time. She gave him a faint smile and patted him on the cheek. “Excuse me, my dear. I have to go have a talk with your father.”

“You won’t hurt him?”

“Only enough to _encourage_ him not to do that again, darling.”

Draco smiled tremulously and moved out of the way while Narcissa strode towards the staircase. “He was in his study the last I knew,” Draco called after her.

Narcissa showed that she’d heard that with a slight twitch of her shoulder and quicker steps. Her hand was at her waist, touching first the handle of an ornate dagger that she carried more for use in ritual purposes than for ordinary ones, and then the handle of her wand.

No. She would use the wand only as a last resort. Far better to use other skills to make Lucius understand that he was _not to hurt her son._

*

“Narcissa?”

She smiled thinly as she shut the door to the study behind her. This particular one was a modestly-sized room with bookshelves on only two walls. A long table where Lucius’s father used to conduct business took up the south wall, with a magnificent view out the second-largest window in the Manor, and the large marble fireplace dominated the north one. Lucius sat at the central desk in the study, and he was already turned to face her.

In general, he seemed to have recovered more of his intellect since she had destroyed part of the Dark Mark. He responded to threats more quickly and spoke with some words and perspectives that she hadn’t heard in years. But obviously, this hadn’t taken care of _all_ possible stupidity that could spill from his mouth.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Lucius was slowly standing, but he was intelligent enough not to reach for his wand.

“Why, only that you inflicted mental harm on our son when he spoke to you with honesty. What else would be wrong?”

Lucius clenched his jaw for a moment. Then he said, “I hope that you can understand I only want what’s best for the boy. And children and marriage to a pure-blood woman would be that. I mean, look how well it’s worked out for me.” His voice reflected the cringing motion back against the desk he did a second later.

“Harry is being trained the way I am. Draco will have a spouse as protective and powerful for himself as you have. What does the genital configuration matter?”

“There needs to be a next generation of Malfoys.”

“There will be. Or do you think that adoption ceases to function because your son has chosen a male lover?”

“There—there need to be blood Malfoy children. That one imperative has ruled the Malfoy line for generations.”

Narcissa sighed at him. Lucius clenched his hand around an inkwell that promptly slid across the desk and dumped ink all over the carpet. Narcissa waited until the house-elf had popped in and taken care of the mess. Then she said, “There are rituals and spells that will make them as strongly Draco’s blood children as if they were born of his seed. They can _use_ his seed. Did you forget that as well?”

“There are—my father said that there are artifacts in the Malfoy vaults that cannot be inherited by such children.”

“Then you will sell them and use the money to purchase new artifacts that _can_ be.”

“You do not understand! How can I give up my family’s heritage?”

“Well, it will be a means to enable you to hold on to your life. I would think that would make you more interested in doing so.” Narcissa moved a step closer, and made sure that her robes hung in a fashion that meant she could kick easily. Lucius saw the motion, and understood it, and paled further. “Which do you want more, to have ‘pure’ grandchildren or to be alive to see the ones that you will have?”

Lucius looked back and forth from her robes to her face. Then he said, as if talking to himself, “These young romances don’t always last. It’s entirely possible that Draco will give up Potter before they get to the age where they want to have children.”

“It’s possible,” Narcissa agreed. “But if it does not happen, you will do nothing to distress either Draco or Harry.”

There was a long moment when she thought she would have to reinforce the lesson, but then Lucius nodded in agreement. Narcissa came forwards and kissed his forehead. “Thank you, my dear,” she murmured. “I’m so glad that we can have these disputes and then settle them amicably.”

Lucius gave her a sickly smile and went back to working on what looked like a parchment addressed to Gringotts. Narcissa strode back down the stairs to find Draco and Harry and tell them the good news.

*

“If you are sure that you want me to reprise my turn as the Astronomy professor…”

“Several of the students in fifth year got Outstandings on their OWLS, Narcissa. And at least a few of the NEWT students likewise. And we haven’t had any luck in hiring someone who will fill the role. I would ask you to take up the Defense post, but, well.” Minerva looked tired as her face floated in the fire. “I haven’t had any British choices for that, either. That means I’ll have to pick a foreign choice.”

Narcissa nodded thoughtfully. “What is their name?”

“She’s called Idunna Freyasdaughter. Nordic, a practitioner of some of the old Norse magic. She keeps her real name a secret, but says she won’t mind going by Idunna. I hope that if she only comes for a year and then leaves, that will be enough to satisfy the curse.”

“A woman like that may be a better choice than some of the others,” Narcissa agreed, although she would keep an eye out in case Freyasdaughter turned out to be another Umbridge. “Very well. You may expect to see me on September 1st with my sons.”

Minerva smiled in a way that eased some of the lines around her mouth. “You might want to know that I also found some notes Albus made on the possible Horcruxes he investigated. He didn’t locate any of them, but it’s a start.”

“That will serve to punish Voldemort,” Narcissa said happily. “I actually think that I may have destroyed one already, in the past. A diary that had Tom Riddle’s will and soul imprinted into it,” she added, when Minerva blinked at her. “I didn’t identify it as a Horcrux at the time, but I sent it into the Chamber to be destroyed by the creature that dwelled there.”

Minerva looked for a long moment as if she wanted to ask, and then her wisdom got the better of her and she nodded. “Very well. Then we will speak to each other on September 1st.” And she vanished from the fire.

Narcissa sat back, and half-closed her eyes as she began to spin a new plan. It seemed that she would have help on the Horcruxes much sooner than she had counted on. That meant she could concentrate more directly on punishing Voldemort.

*

“What’s the Acting Minister doing here?”

Narcissa gave a serene smile at her sons as she escorted them through the pressing crowd in King’s Cross to the train. Acting Minister Amelia Bones was standing in the middle of the wizarding side of the station with her arms folded and her mouth set in a thin line. Reporters clustered around her, quills scribbling away.

Narcissa was the one who had sent her the anonymous letter that she might want to be here as a sign that she guaranteed the safety of the Hogwarts students. That it took the press’s attention away from Harry was a benefit.

Harry strode along in front of Draco, his hand resting lightly above his wand and his eyes so brilliant that Narcissa smiled proudly at him. He had got four O’s on his OWLS, in Defense, Astronomy, Transfiguration, and Charms. Draco had only one less, although one of his was in Potions instead of Defense. And Draco walked more openly at Harry’s side than he had last year, with a shadow banished from his face since Narcissa had confronted his father.

“Um. Good-bye, my dear.”

Narcissa turned around to kiss Lucius, ignoring the way he flushed. Malfoys traditionally thought such public displays unseemly. Narcissa had made it clear early in her marriage that she did not care what Malfoys thought. “Good-bye. I trust that you will keep your head when you speak to our mutual friend.”

Lucius swallowed. “If—if he calls on me.”

“He will try. I suggest that you remain polite and distant and only respond the way I taught you.”

Lucius nodded. His damaged Mark was incapable of forcing him to feel as much pain as Voldemort usually inflicted on the Death Eaters when he called them. Narcissa only needed him to stand up to the agony he _would_ feel, and send a letter that implied Narcissa was the culprit keeping him home.

Which was true, in the most essential sense.

Narcissa waved to her husband, waited for Draco to shake his father’s hand, and then escorted the boys onto the train. Their compartment was one of the smaller ones, and although it soon became crowded with Slytherins and Gryffindors, the noise produced was of the kind that could be easily tolerated. Narcissa sat back with her eyes closed and her mind slowly stretching and turning in an imagined room of blue, swaying curtains.

She had come up with one way to pay Voldemort back. Time to see if it would work.

She reached out with her mind, hunting carefully through the immense, imagined darkness around her, and at last located the link that had bound them since Voldemort had taken her blood. When she saw it, she understood why she hadn’t seen it very well at first. The link was jagged and uneven, flowing with red at the edges—nothing like the stronger link Voldemort had shared with Harry when the Horcrux was still intact.

Narcissa retreated to her own mental room, attached her end of the link to it, and started working on an arrow. She created every inch of it carefully, examining it with the eyes of her imagination after every new addition. In the end, she had an image of a gleaming black piece of wood, fletched with white feathers on the end.

The tip gleamed, made of razor-edged bloodstone. The symbolic implications were more important than whether the stone would hold that sort of edge in the real world.

_This is not the real world. Except where I will it to be._

Narcissa held the arrow in the grip of her mind and opened her eyes for a moment. Harry gave her an understanding look. Narcissa had not tutored him much in battle Legilimency, but he knew the theory. Draco smiled at her.

Neither of them was in danger. Narcissa closed her eyes, leaned back in her seat, and then threw the arrow down the link that connected her and Voldemort, as hard as she could.

For long moments, there was only the sensation of the arrow traveling away from her. Narcissa could feel the vibration, the imagined wind, of its passage, and how it made the link that bound them shake like it was made of wind itself.

Then the arrow hit its target.

The shriek that filled Narcissa’s mind was inhuman and piercing. Narcissa laughed. She had made the arrow of her hatred and her desire to protect her family and her determination to hurt Voldemort. And it had struck.

The pain that came flooding through the link tore apart the blue tapestries she had imagined filling that corner of her mind and tried to inflict magical damage on her. Narcissa twisted agilely aside. Voldemort was experienced at mental combat, but not while he was bleeding from the strike of someone he must have believed could not hurt him.

Narcissa intended to show him how very _badly_ his education was lacking.

Again the great downrush of Dark power came for her. Narcissa turned neatly to the side, and it went speeding past. Then she reached out and plucked the link between them until it rang like a harpstring.

Again Voldemort screamed, and the next attack broke apart like a puff of dust hitting a boulder. Narcissa laughed and raised her Occlumency higher and higher, until the corner of her mind that had been blue tapestries filled with dark mountains.

Then she opened her eyes and nodded to her sons, while Voldemort screamed and raged and battered like a fly on a distant windowpane. “I trust that you are going to improve on your study of Ancient Runes this term, Draco?”

*

A knock on the door of her quarters that night made Narcissa glance up with raised eyebrows. Her children had not looked distressed when they separated to go to their dungeons and Tower, and it was unlikely that Lucius would need her again this quickly.

Then she felt magic making her teeth ring, and sighed. The new Defense professor was standing outside her door, then. Narcissa made sure her wand was in her sleeve, and went to open it.

Idunna Freyasdaughter looked at her without smiling. “May I come in, or will you keep me waiting in the corridor in the most discourteous way possible?”

Narcissa moved out of the way. Idunna stepped past her. She had long golden hair that Narcissa suspected would have hung to her ankles if she hadn’t been wearing battle-braids that curved around the top of her head. Iron clattered at her neck and wrists. That was unusual. One needed to be a powerful witch to work like that with iron, which was more magically inert than most other metals.

Idunna turned around. “I sensed the impurity of your power as soon as I sat beside you.”

“I am a Dark witch. That is most likely what you sensed.”

“I have been around those who use Dark Arts before. This was worse.” Idunna’s tone was precise, and her blue eyes never wavered from Narcissa’s face. “This argued that you have spent your life honing your Darkness, turning it into a way to punish those who annoy you.”

Narcissa studied her, intrigued. She had never found someone who could sense the discipline as a separate part of her, especially since the spells and devices that made it up were all ones that could be used in other contexts. “So you think that I’m going to poison the children at this school?”

“I think you could very well do so.” Idunna’s voice was quiet, but her hand flexed, fingers spreading and contracting as though she was going to grow claws and try to tear Narcissa’s throat out. “I want you to know that I am here to teach children to _Defend_ against the Dark Arts. If you try to hurt someone, including me, I will not hesitate to stop you.”

“Then I should tell you something in return, as a courtesy.” Narcissa nodded. “I have two sons here, one by blood and one by adoption. If you try to harm them when they walk into your classroom, you will be sliced apart and buried in seven different graves while still alive.”

Idunna’s hand stopped moving. “So you _have_ poisoned a child,” she whispered.

“He’s received the poison immunity training, yes.”

“That is not what I mean and you know it!”

“Then tell me what you _do_ mean.” Narcissa’s eyebrows went higher on her face than they had before. “What I can tell you is that you are incredibly tiresome.”

Idunna clasped her hands together, and golden sparks began dancing over her knuckles. “I am a Light witch. I fight the darkness where I find it.”

“And I don’t make a point of fighting the Light, but I do make a point of targeting my enemies. You’ve just declared yourself one of them. Would you like to reverse that declaration?”

“Doing so would dishonor me.”

Narcissa sighed. “Then fight me all you want, but the moment you touch my children or my husband, you will regret it.”

“I would never target innocents.”

 _And she might not think of Harry or Lucius that way._ Narcissa waited until she’d left, then turned and slid her hands into one of the trunks she’d brought from home but thought she wouldn’t need until they found a Horcrux.

Well. One must be prepared for contingencies, after all.


	4. Part Four

“Mother, I need to talk to you.”

Draco’s voice was low and grave, and Narcissa glanced at him and nodded once. He had spoken softly enough, and late enough in the Astronomy class, that she doubted the students struggling with their eyelids had heard him. “In a few minutes,” she said, and then walked past the desks on her final patrol, encouraging them to finish up their notes about what new magical symbols they had seen among the stars.

“But aren’t all the symbols we see in the stars just imagined there?” Dean Thomas said, turning around to look at Narcissa earnestly. “I mean, like the constellations. The stars don’t _really_ make them up. We just think they do.”

Narcissa smiled at him. “You are learning, Mr. Thomas. But the power of your belief is what guides magical Astronomy. If you _can_ see those constellations, or runes, or other figures, then you can use them. If you do not believe they exist, you can’t.”

Thomas blinked and turned back to his paper, as did several of the other students in Narcissa’s NEWT Astronomy class. Harry was smiling slightly as he wrote down the last flourish of what looked like a complicated explanation.

“Please guard the door of the classroom while Draco and I speak,” Narcissa murmured as she walked past him.

“Yes, Mother.”

Narcissa paused in mid-step and let her eyelids droop for a moment. _Mother_. Harry had used it before, but never this casually, and she wanted to hold the revelation to herself and caress it.

They were in public, however, so she forced her head up and continued to walk, praising Miss Granger’s innovative finding of several uncommon runes among the stars in Orion and Miss Parkinson’s several imaginative uses of the constellation Draco. At least she no longer suspected, as she had last year, that Miss Parkinson might have chosen that particular constellation because she was nursing a doomed crush on the living Draco in the classroom. She had moved on gracefully.

When the class finished and most of the students had turned in their notes and stumbled off to bed, Harry strolled to the door and stepped outside it. A complicated ward snapped into existence a few seconds later. Narcissa smiled and turned to Draco.

Draco hesitated for long enough that Narcissa wondered if he was suffering a crisis of self-doubt. Then he reached up and waved his wand near his face.

Narcissa slammed the discipline down around herself as she saw the sunburst-shaped burn mark on his cheek. “How did that happen?” she asked, and her voice did not shake in rage, and her focus did not narrow to revenge plans. It was important to pay attention to her son’s _words_.

“Just from being in the same room as the Defense professor, Mother. She didn’t touch me, but this is what happened.”

Narcissa blinked, then blinked again. That indicated a closeness to the Dark Arts that she had never suspected Draco had inherited. She had been sure that Harry would be the one to have trouble.

Then again, their discipline drew on a wide variety of neutral devices and spells allied to neither Light nor Dark, as well. Narcissa stopped her scolding of herself for not noticing before—it would do no good now—and asked simply, “Do you want me to do something about it?” She suspected not. If Draco had had that pure and uncomplicated desire, he would have come to her the minute it happened.

“No. I want to solve this problem on my own. I’ll get nowhere if I have to let you and Harry keep doing things for me.”

 _You would get to safety,_ Narcissa thought but did not say. She nodded. “All right. How will you endure classes with her if you are in pain?”

“I found a Dark shielding spell that’s based on thoughts of how much you want your enemy to suffer. I can cast it without—Mother.” Draco smiled a little, despite the obviously painful way that his burned cheek stretched. “I cast it the first time, without practice, even _though_ I got one of the wand movements wrong!”

Narcissa placed a hand on his shoulder, and then leaned down and embraced him when he looked at her expectantly. She hadn’t wanted to embarrass him, but it seemed this kind of thing would not embarrass Draco, not yet. _Thank Merlin_. “I’m sorry for never noticing and nurturing your talent before, Draco.”

“I wanted to do it myself. I’ve looked up some books in Father’s library and performed some spells, but, well—it’s the sort of thing that’s hard to do right unless you have an enemy.”

Narcissa nodded. “I will only ask that you not perform an actual spell on Professor Freyadaughter or attack her unless she attacks you. I had an idea the other day that might make her useful.”

“But if she attacks me or Harry…”

“Of course. No one will ever be _that_ useful.”

Draco smiled at her and leaned up to kiss her on the cheek. “Thank you, Mother. Getting burned just being around her Light magic startled me, you know. That’s never happened before.”

“It could be that your sensitivity has increased with age, and it could be that she burns so Light she is a new experience for you. I would wager on it being both.”

“That’s what I thought it was, too,” Draco said, in contentment. “Anyway. I’ll take care of it. I’ve got several ideas.” He beamed at her and ran over to the door, rapping on it lightly. Harry’s locking spell broke at his touch, and the door swung open.

Harry took Draco’s arm lightly, eyes fixed on the unconcealed burn. Draco raised the glamour and a challenging eyebrow at the same time. After a moment of tension that Narcissa thought would explode in violence, Harry nodded.

They left together, her boys. Narcissa doused the torches in the classroom and followed, so full of pride that the long staircase seemed to have turned to air.

*

“You would not have come to me without a good reason.”

“You are right. I would not have.” Narcissa stared at the handkerchief she was twisting around her fingers, and kept her gaze on it until Idunna sighed and opened the door of her quarters to let her in.

The quarters were ablaze with mirrors and candles. Narcissa angled her head a little so the dazzle of light wouldn’t blind her, and turned around to face Idunna, swallowing.

“Do you know of Horcruxes?”

Idunna’s wand was drawn in an instant, a spark of magic like rising dawn dancing down her fingers. “Where did you _hear_ that word?”

“It is more than a word,” Narcissa said, keeping her voice small. She looked again at the handkerchief, although this time it was mostly so she wouldn’t laugh. “It is a _thing_. Many things. The Dark Lord made them. More than one. I have managed to destroy one, and I think the person it corrupted will be all right now. But—I know there are others. And I’ve started dreaming about the Dark Lord lately.”

“Call him by his right name. Call him _Voldemort_.”

Narcissa gave a flinch that was exaggerated, but then again, Idunna wasn’t to know that Narcissa had been using his name for years. “I’m afraid to in his presence,” she whispered. “The Horcruxes haunt my dreams. I think there must be one nearby. But I don’t know where it is, or how to find it.”

That Voldemort would have hidden a Horcrux in the school seemed to Narcissa entirely possible. He had been obsessed with Founders’ artifacts at one point, if what Lucius had told her of some of his ravings in the Death Eater meetings was true. (And it must be true; Lucius would not dare to lie to her). He had wanted to teach at Hogwarts at one point. He had made speeches about how he would restore Hogwarts’ ancient glory.

And if Narcissa could use Idunna as her hound on a leash to find it, she would be happy about the minimum of wasted effort it would cost her.

“Why do you think one must be nearby?”

Narcissa backed up a step and gave Idunna the eyes of a frightened deer. “B-because I didn’t have any dreams like this at home! And I’ve found myself—I never had such hostility to the Light before. But now I do. I find myself wanting to curse you at dinner.”

Idunna lapped that up, as of course she would. Nothing Narcissa said was a lie, only a technical truth, counting that she had not had dreams of Horcruxes in Malfoy Manor. And most of the time, she had no particular hostility to Light wizards and witches who were not trying to hurt her family.

“I should have known that someone with your reputation would not go Dark so suddenly.”

“My reputation?”

“Calm and quiet and graceful, and influential in persuading your husband to hold back when he might sometimes trample over others with his might and money.”

“Oh.” Narcissa clasped her fingers tighter and tighter, until Idunna reached out and gently plucked the handkerchief from her hands.

“Do not break bones,” she whispered, Light glowing from her and playing along her wand and reflecting from the walls. “I will find this Horcrux. I promise you. And when it is destroyed, then your corruption should cease.”

Narcissa bowed her head. “ _Thank you_ , my lady.”

“Idunna, that’s what you should call me. We are fellow professors, and more united in the struggle against the Dark than I knew.”

Narcissa bowed and stumbled and fumbled her way out of Idunna’s quarters, then went to mark essays. This particular ploy would give her some breathing room to concentrate on things other than Horcruxes, and Light magic was probably better-suited to finding them than the Divination methods Narcissa had intended to employ.

She could watch Draco’s progress in the Dark Arts, and continue Harry’s training, Lucius’s freedom, and Voldemort’s punishment. That Idunna, reliant on the ability to detect lies that often came along with such bright magic, would believe her an ally only made things all the sweeter.

*

“Watch, Mother!”

Narcissa stopped in the door of the small room she had adopted as her training room this year with Harry, and watched as Draco raised a shield around himself. For a second, it glowed as blue-black as a piece of night sky, shaped and polished and stolen from the stars. Then it thinned and vanished.

Narcissa reached out carefully with a hand. She felt nothing solid, but the air seemed to thicken around her fingers as they approached Draco.

“You’ve mastered another shield?”

“Yes. This one just surrounds my face with Darkness and makes sure that none of her Light magic can touch me.” Draco laughed and dropped the glamour on his face. The sunburst-sharped sunburn had already healed, Narcissa saw with sharp gladness. “I’m working on making sure I can have one for my hands, too, so I don’t get burned when she hands my essays back.”

“A wise decision.” Narcissa looked across the room and saw Harry tossing his knives in the air, playing with them, but also proving that he could catch them and lie safely in the middle of a whirlwind of steel. He looked back at her and winked.

Then he gave Draco a smile that was as soft as the wind and as deep as that shield’s color. And Narcissa felt another sharp gladness. Her son would have a more equal marriage than she had.

“I’m going to teach Harry how to defend against a certain kind of mental attack, Draco,” she said, and saw the way her son waved his wand to dismiss the shield. “You will want to learn this, too, although the technique for you will be different.”

“Why can’t I learn the way Harry is?”

“Because you were never a Horcrux. You don’t have that wound there. The way you defend your mind and soul will have to be different.”

Draco paused, with his head tilted, and then nodded and sat on the chair in front of her that he must have conjured; Harry was better at arts other than conjuration. Harry sat on the floor beside him, calm and attentive.

“Now,” Narcissa said, “there are certain people who can detect lies, and you can’t do anything about that. A master Legilimens like Voldemort. A Light witch like Professor Freyadaughter, who burns so with radiance that she would burn through even the murk of lies in her own mind. You can, however, make sure that they do not _influence_ you into telling the truth.”

“How would they do that?” Draco had turned pale.

Narcissa approved of his caution. “A master Legilimens might impose her will upon you. A strong Light witch or wizard might tilt you more towards the Light the more time you spend with them. I suspect that is one reason that Professor Freyadaughter was willing to take up a position at Hogwarts when it is both in another country from hers and cursed. She wishes to _save_ her students.”

“Will she turn me into being more Light, then?”

“Not you, Draco. I think your natural affinity for the Dark is too strong. But there may be a chance of it harming others.”

Harry inclined his head as Narcissa looked at him. “So that’s what you’re going to teach me to defend against?”

“Yes. And I will teach Draco the form of the attack that will keep a Legilimens from swaying him simply by being in the same room.”

“Do, please, Mother.” Draco looked revolted. “I know I can’t resist the Imperius Curse yet like Harry can, but I want to make sure that I don’t just crumble and do whatever Voldemort wants.”

“You’ve been testing the Imperius Curse on him, Harry?”

“Yes.” Harry’s glance back at her was entirely unapologetic.

Narcissa sighed. “Well, make sure that you don’t do it at Hogwarts outside this room, which has the wards to prevent anyone else from sensing an Unforgivable. Now, Draco, this is like Occlumency, but you imagine yourself constantly and fluidly moving, making a shield of the motion, instead of building a solid one like most people do in Occlumency…”

*

“I believe I have located the Horcrux.”

Narcissa turned at once to Idunna, who had taken the seat beside her at dinner. “You have?” she asked, and let her surprise color her voice as worship. “That is impressive work!”

“When I know what I am looking for, it is not.”

 _Of course not, since I gave you the first clue. Would you have looked for a Horcrux in the school at all if I had not informed you?_ But Narcissa let her eyelashes veil her eyes as if in modesty and murmured, “Do you need any help to destroy it?”

“No. I know several ways of poisoning such foul things. But I would like you to witness me destroy it. You can tell me if the heavy weight of your dreams and your hostility to the Light begins to fade when you confront it, or if they continue. If they continue, that would suggest another Horcrux exists.”

_I already told you that others exist, idiot._

“I would be most grateful, Idunna,” Narcissa said, and went back to eating her meal, while making quiet plans to order Harry and Draco to stay in Gryffindor Tower and the dungeons and not venture out after curfew as they often did. She didn’t want them anywhere near the scene of a Horcrux’s destruction they didn’t have a reason to be intimately a part of.

*

“The radiation of the Darkness is here?”

“Inside a wall, Idunna?”

“Ah, that is what I thought, as well. But I asked the Headmistress, and she said she believed that there had been a classroom here at one point. Or at least _a_ room. A hidden door. I suspect Voldemort thought he was being clever.”

 _There are times he borders on it,_ Narcissa thought, and stood back against the tapestry of dancing trolls as Idunna aimed her wand at the wall.

“I am the Light against the Dark,” Idunna intoned, and then went on, speaking more words in a language Narcissa was not going to admit she knew. The golden ornaments she had braided into her hair today began to spin on their small chains, picking up the light that seemed to exude from Idunna’s wand. Idunna finally raised her wand and brought it down in a single, savage motion that made the floor tremble.

But nothing happened to the wall in front of her. Narcissa moved a hand across her mouth as if to conceal a gasp.

“That spell should not have failed,” Idunna said, in a voice that sounded dazed from how much magic she had expended. Then she returned to shouting at the stone, threatening it, trying to crack it, and even stirring up what Narcissa recognized as a minor earthquake. Nothing happened. Voldemort’s hiding place remained solid and secure.

“Have you tried asking it?” Narcissa murmured.

“What?” Idunna whirled to face her, her hair singed.

“Like this,” Narcissa said, and reached over to knock on the solid wall. “Will you open unto us and show us the room where Voldemort hid everything he did not want others to find?”

There was a responsive shimmer of magic from the wall, and the outline of a door appeared. Narcissa began to move back and forth in front of it, and on the third pass, the door appeared fully.

“How did you know to do that?” Idunna’s suspicious voice demanded behind her.

“I thought asking might work better than demanding,” Narcissa said mildly, and slipped inside. Idunna came right behind her. Narcissa didn’t mind that. The woman’s magic was still the best chance they had to identify the Horcrux.

_And I might have visited the Headmistress before we came up here, too._


	5. Part Five

Idunna moved slowly into the room, gesturing everywhere with her wand. Narcissa stood near the doorway and watched in silence. Now that the door was open, she could feel the foul magic that she had sensed from Harry’s Horcrux in the moment before its destruction by the ritual.

Still, that didn’t tell her anything about the direction they needed to move in. The floor was covered with dust and piles and piles of rubbish, everything from torn cushions to crushed portrait frames. Narcissa shook her head a little. She could understand why this would make a good hiding place for a Horcrux, but not why it had become one in the first place. Did no students ever want to throw something _away_ instead of hiding it?

Idunna paused in the middle of the room and closed her eyes. Her lips moved in what Narcissa thought was a chant to restore some of her magic, and sure enough, when she opened her eyes again, they looked more like polished coins than they had. “Come with me now, Professor Malfoy.”

Narcissa followed again. There were small, winding paths between the stacks, but no sense of order or organization. Narcissa smiled a little as she imagined what the Malfoy house-elves would have to say about this.

“Is something _funny_ , Professor Malfoy?”

“Not at all,” Narcissa replied blandly. “Only thinking that I have underestimated how messy students can be.”

Idunna paused. _Probably scanning my words for signs of evil Darkness_. Then she turned away with a curt nod and began working her way further and further into the room. Sometimes they had to turn aside to avoid a bedframe, an ancient wardrobe, or something else too big to force their way over, but not often.

 _Her magic is leading her to it,_ Narcissa thought contentedly. _And will hopefully help her identify any traps that surround it before they go off._ It would be a waste if her Horcrux hound died the first time she encountered one.

Idunna stopped abruptly and closed her eyes, swaying back and forth. Narcissa wondered why for a moment until she saw the air in front of the woman congealing, turning green and greasy. A snake-shape formed there, swaying with Idunna. Then Idunna barked a word and extended a hand, and the serpent dissipated into a shower of sparks.

“It makes sense that someone from the Slytherin House would use a serpent as his guardian.”

“It seems to be a unique spell. How did you defeat it?”

That gave Idunna the chance to give her a lecture, which seemed pleasing to the woman. In truth, Narcissa already suspected it was a use of the Sleeping Serpent Curse, and nodded and gave her as much attention as she could fake while keeping an eye out for the Horcrux. The vibrating feeling of darkness was close now.

“ _Halt_!”

Narcissa froze in place. Idunna was kneeling in front of what looked like a lamp with stained glass panels, but two of the panels were broken and their glass scattered on the floor. Narcissa let her eyebrows creep up. The lamp looked neither ancient nor sturdy enough to hold a shard of Voldemort’s soul.

“There was a spell cast on this lamp that makes everyone the light touches cursed.”

“Is the wick lit?”

“No, of course not. But it is my duty to destroy the lamp so that no one else can ever again be harmed by it.”

Narcissa had practice not rolling her eyes at Lucius, and she put it to good use now. “I understand, Idunna. But will you still have the magic left to combat the Horcrux if you take care of the lamp now?”

Idunna tossed her hair back with a frown. “And you think the Horcrux will be such a strong battle?”

“Well, it is corrupting me, and it is keeping a Dark Lord alive.” Narcissa lowered her eyes to the floor. “Of course, you are the expert.”

“Then treat me like one.”

 _Already the truce is loosening,_ Narcissa thought, but took care to wipe any trace of expression from her face and keep her tone mild and meek as she said, “Yes, Idunna.”

The woman began a complicated chant that first repaired the lamp and then wrenched something within it, making it emit a long hiss of steam and a faint dying cry. Narcissa held back a snort. The curse hadn’t been a powerful one, and in fact probably wouldn’t have been able to work at all once the glass was broken. Idunna must have known that, with her “expertise,” but the look of satisfaction on her face said she didn’t care.

“Now for the Horcrux,” Idunna said, and they rounded one last corner.

Narcissa’s gaze locked at once on the silver diadem hanging over the ear of a cracked bust. Her eyes narrowed. That looked much like the picture of the lost diadem of Ravenclaw that she had once seen in an ancient schoolbook. It would make sense that Voldemort had managed to find and corrupt a priceless artifact. Narcissa shook her head slightly. He would have got much more good from being _known_ as the discoverer of the artifact; he could have had fame and fortune simply from that.

Of course, she had long since established that her blood had not transferred any traces of common sense to Voldemort.

“The diadem is corrupted.”

“I will remain back, Idunna.”

Idunna advanced towards the Horcrux and jabbed her wand at it. The air around it flared in a pattern of light like the bars of a cage. Narcissa raised an eyebrow slightly. Those were impressive traps, and she hadn’t dealt with any others like them. Then again, Voldemort hadn’t known Harry was a Horcrux, and the diary, if she was correct about it, had been meant to go out and corrupt others. Traps to prevent someone from touching it were beside the point.

“He has tarnished a powerful artifact.”

“The diadem of Ravenclaw?”

“How did you know that?”

“I have seen pictures of it.” _Does she think that no one in the world could know anything but her?_ Then again, Idunna’s tendency to treat Narcissa as a child was what had allowed Narcissa to fool her in the first place.

For a moment, Idunna eyed her as if she had trouble believing that, but Narcissa only stared back blandly. In the end, Idunna shrugged and murmured, “He has done an evil deed. At one time, it was said that Ravenclaw’s diadem could grant perfect knowledge to anyone who put it on.”

Her hand twitched a little. Narcissa nodded to the web of intricate lines in the air, to remind Idunna of the traps’ existence. “What do you think will be the right method to disarm them?”

“They are based on the anger and hatred that anyone might feel when they come near an artifact this Dark.” Idunna laid her wand on the floor and reached up to unbraid her hair. It tumbled over her shoulders and down to her waist with one pull of a golden cord. Narcissa raised her eyebrows. She would have to study her memories of this moment in a Pensieve later, to see how Idunna had done that. It could be a useful way to braid extra weapons into her hair.

“What are you doing?” Narcissa asked when Idunna reached out bare hands.

“I have made myself defenseless. I reach for the diadem in trust and love.”

Narcissa braced herself, but Idunna’s hands did indeed slide through the dark lines as if they weren’t there, and closed around the diadem. She caught her breath sharply, making Narcissa narrow her eyes.

But when she lifted the diadem off the bust, she didn’t place it on her head. She smiled a little at Narcissa, using the condescending tinge without which she probably couldn’t smile at all, and murmured, “The traps were anchored to the place where the diadem stayed. We now only have to destroy the Horcrux.”

“Will you use Fiendfyre? Or basilisk venom?”

“Both those weapons are tools of the Dark.”

Narcissa let her eyebrows rise slowly enough that Idunna turned to look at her and saw them. “Fiendfyre is indeed a Dark curse,” Narcissa murmured. “But basilisk venom is neutral, like any poison.”

“It takes Dark magic to hatch a basilisk in the first place. Do you _truly_ imagine that I would use it?”

Narcissa let herself take on a chastised expression again, and Idunna waved her off. “In the meantime,” she said, and laid the diadem in the middle of the room’s floor, before she began to conjure a sheet of silk. She then pulled a vial of something thick and silvery from her pocket and dripped it into the silk.

“Is that willingly given unicorn blood?”

“Yes. It will purify the silk into a weapon that can contain the diadem.”

Narcissa did not need _that_ explained, but she again adopted that docile expression. Idunna tucked the diadem away when the silk was fully watered, and slipped the whole package into her pocket. Narcissa followed thoughtfully.

She only hoped that the diadem could not also possess people, and that Idunna would not find herself tempted to place the diadem on her head before taking care of it. On the other hand, if that happened, Narcissa knew she could take care of it.

*

“Mother, Professor Freyasdaughter was staring at me all through class today.”

“Was she?” Narcissa kept her voice light as she watched Draco shape the shield he’d found around himself, a thin cocoon of blackness that only shimmered and flickered for a moment before it disappeared fully into his skin. “Has she burned you again?”

Draco shook his head and lifted his hand to wipe the glamour away with a swift motion of his wand. The sunburst had healed except for a faint lingering trace of pink on his cheekbone like a blush. “But it makes me wonder if she knows that I’m using Dark Arts.”

“If she tries to assign you a detention, then tell her that you would prefer to serve it with Filch than her.”

“ _Mother_.”

“She must not be allowed to get you alone. There are spells she could cast that would reveal your use of the Dark Arts.”

Draco paused. “Even with the shields? The books said they were supposed to keep the nature of the spells I was performing secret as well as keep her Light magic from affecting me.”

“It would depend on the Light magic she used. She would need time to prepare, and it would resemble a ritual more than an incantation. That is why she must not be allowed to have you alone. If she is in front of other students, she wouldn’t be able to cast it.”

Draco nodded, his eyes shadowed. “Do you think that if she does assign me a detention and insist that I serve it with her, I should try to get Harry into the same detention?”

“Either that, or have him come with you under his Invisibility Cloak and watch. He would be able to recognize the beginnings of the incantation and disrupt it more easily than you could when she can see you.”

The beginning of Draco’s glare of resentment died, but he did say, “How come you never taught _me_ to recognize the beginnings of those incantations, Mother?”

“It did not seem to me that it was knowledge you needed, when I knew you would never wield Light magic. But if you would like to learn them now, as part of the process of recognizing an enemy….”

“Yes, Mother. Please. I don’t want to know what would happen if she managed to get me alone in a corridor or something.”

“She would die. But that would come later.”

Draco gave her a slightly uneasy glance, and then seemed to decide she meant that she would kill Idunna when she found out about it, when in fact Narcissa would keep Idunna alive for some time to explain all the subtleties of her displeasure to her. “All right. What are the wand motions?”

Narcissa showed him the first ones, and watched him write down the neat, precise descriptions he had learned to write from his father before he went to Hogwarts. Lucius was a master at that, one of the skills Narcissa valued in him. “Now you want to—”

She winced at the sudden explosion against the back of her mind. Evidently Voldemort had decided to try again to punish her for what she had done to him. She shook her head at Draco and said, “Study them for now,” and turned inwards to focus on the battlefield.

This time, the angry, empty space between them, forged by the blood-link, was quivering and trying to form into something that looked like a dark forest. Narcissa sighed at the lack of etiquette some Dark Lords had and changed it into a drawing room. There were soft white curtains against the windows and the light of a dim grey day coming from the outside. Bookshelves stood along the walls, but before Narcissa could populate them, Voldemort was in front of her.

“You will _cease this_!”

He wanted to make her kneel, or so the blast of magic that hit her a moment later signified. Narcissa coolly lifted the techniques of the discipline against it. She had learned to use and wield deadly weapons and poisons from the moment she could place her hands on vials. She would not have succeeded without the ability to keep calm under any circumstances.

“Cease what, Voldemort?” Narcissa asked, when the onslaught had stopped. He was staring at her with his mouth open in a crooked kind of snarl, baring teeth that looked as if he never brushed them.

“Defying me. _Freeing your husband_!”

So he had found out about that, as both she and Lucius had predicted. Narcissa wondered if she should bring Lucius to Hogwarts for the next part of the ritual. At least he should be safe behind the wards of the Manor. “No. Why should I? He is mine.”

Voldemort flung back his head and screamed. Narcissa waited until that too died away, then said, “You’ll wear out your voice.”

This time, the strength that reared up against her was like a black wave, and did crush her to her knees. Narcissa frowned when she saw the curtains and the windows wavering, and thick dark trees crowding in. “It’s rude to change someone’s décor without permission,” she said.

“Do you even _understand_ that your life ceases today, Narcissa Malfoy?”

“You do enjoy the word ‘cease,’ don’t you.”

Voldemort slammed her with enough darkness to drown her—well, to drown an ordinary person. Narcissa thought that he still did not understand that she was not ordinary. She lifted mental shields against it so that the magic flowed away on either side of her. Voldemort advanced towards her, his hand out.

“I will draw your heart out through the chest wall and _eat it_.”

Narcissa focused strongly. She had done this before, but admittedly not for years. She had had no need of this skill in most of her assassinations, and Harry had not reached the level where she could attempt to teach it to him yet.

As Voldemort’s hand touched her chest—at least the ribs, not the breasts, he had some shred of sense left—Narcissa cast a spell in her mind. “ _Colliquesco_!”

Voldemort screamed as his eyes began to melt out of his face. He reeled back, hands reeling to scratch through the disgusting black mess. Narcissa stood and began to strengthen her shields to drive him out. It would cause him pain, but not actually cause his physical eyes to melt. She needed him out of her head, now.

Voldemort was already beginning to fade. Narcissa slammed the shields down, and watched in some regret as the unfinished drawing room dissolved. She opened her eyes, to find Draco and Harry crouching over her with pale faces.

“Are you all right, Mother?” Draco whispered.

Narcissa reached up and squeezed his hand. It did seem as though she had fallen to the floor when Voldemort made her kneel. Disappointing. She would have to work again on the mental aspects of her shields. She nodded and managed to sit up. Harry helped raise her the rest of the way and escorted her to a chair while Draco fetched her tea.

“Thank you, my dears,” Narcissa said, and sipped. There was the taste of a Strengthening Draught in the tea. Well, that made sense. Draco had probably fetched it when he saw her fall.

“Do I still have to do something about Voldemort?” Harry asked. His hand was resting on his faded lightning bolt scar, and his mouth was set in the thin smile he wore most of the time now when she was training him.

“No, darling. Why would you? Your Horcrux is gone, and you weren’t the one whose blood he used in the resurrection ritual. _I_ will have to do something about him.” Narcissa sighed. “I did hope to have some more time in which we could hunt down and destroy the other Horcruxes. But he is rude and annoying enough that he needs to be taught a lesson before then.”

She smiled at her sons. “It’s a good thing I’m a professor.”


	6. Part Six

“Are you ready for the next part of the ritual?” Narcissa held up the wooden griffin’s claw she had carved—after a careful study of one who owed her a favor—and eyed her husband. Lucius stood in the middle of the room, in white robes that he seemed to feel would add to the ritual. They bared the Dark Mark, so Narcissa had let him think it.

“You’re not using the same implements as last time?”

“No. I planned on it, but I know that Voldemort knows about my trying to free you now, so we shall have to change it a little.”

Lucius turned so pale that he made the robes look like a good fashion choice after all. He glanced around as if he wanted to flee back from her rooms to Malfoy Manor. Unluckily for him, Narcissa had already shut the Floo. “ _What_? You didn’t tell me that.”

“I did. You were arguing with me at the time about why you wanted to do this at the Manor instead of at Hogwarts. Is it my fault if you didn’t pay attention?” Narcissa clicked her tongue. “Now, kneel, if you please.”

Lucius cast a Cushioning Charm on the floor that produced an actual cushion, red, with golden tassels. Narcissa hid her amusement. It would not disturb the ritual if he wanted to do something like this.

Narcissa cupped the griffin’s claw in her own curled fingers, attuning herself to the small ridges in the wood and the way that it warmed as she held it. Then she breathed out, “ _I will_ ,” and scattered the salt she held across the runes she’d traced on her floor. They glowed brilliant red as the salt fell on them, and then the white particles slid across the stone into the exact shapes she’d made.

Lucius gasped aloud. Narcissa nodded without opening her eyes. She had drawn the circle more of the will than her runes; without that will, they wouldn’t have activated. He would be feeling it now, an immense pull on the next part of the Dark Mark that she had decided to eradicate.

“ _I call you off_ ,” she said, in the same tone of voice that she’d used to intone the first words. “ _I call you to come to me._ ”

“Narcissa—”

She shifted a little, letting him see the whip strapped to the side of her leg, and he shut up. It was only luck that his interruption hadn’t been disastrous. But they were in a pause between the moments when she gathered her power right now, which let her name fall into the silence and fade away instead of creating ripples.

Narcissa turned in a circle, imitating the shape she had made around Lucius. The runes glowed and began to burn away the salt. Narcissa faced the circle again. She had to act before those brilliant flames died away.

“ _Come to me_.”

Lucius screamed as part of the Dark Mark crisped off and hurtled towards Narcissa, just above the glowing runes.

Narcissa held out her hand, and the runes flared to life at the same moment, an invocation of her will. The flames leaped upwards and gripped the piece of blackness that had come from the Dark Mark. It struggled, and burned, and flapped, and was feeble, and died away at last, leaving Narcissa to flex her fingers in the silence.

And smile.

“Take a look at your Dark Mark, Lucius,” she said, brushing her hands together. The ash that had been the wooden claw crisped softly away.

Lucius glanced down, and swallowed. “The snake’s head and one of the skull’s eye sockets are almost entirely gone,” he whispered.

“That’s right.” Narcissa turned in another circle, sweeping her foot hard over the floor. When she turned back, she had opened a gap in the circle of runes, which meant nothing bad now that they were inactive. She crossed over to Lucius and lifted her husband slowly to his feet. “And how do you feel?”

Lucius continued to frown at his arm as if he wasn’t sure of the answer to that. Then he abruptly looked up and straight into her eyes.

Narcissa stroked his hair back from his face. Yes, _there_ was the sharp intelligence of the man she had married, the man who would never have fallen this far into the Dark Lord’s schemes or done something that endangered his son or defied her to her face.

“Well,” Narcissa breathed.

Lucius broke free of her hands with a sharp jerk, and scowled for a moment at the broken circle. “You know that I won’t be as pliant as I was in the past?”

“I know. But at one time we achieved a mutual satisfactory level of both of us yielding and both of us protecting our family. I would like to achieve that level again.”

“When have you ever been yielding about anything?”

Narcissa shrugged. “I did not force you to get rid of the Dark Mark when I first realized you had it, although I could have found these rituals then and carried them out, even against your will. I chose to trust you and see if your decision to follow Voldemort would repay us. I have not done many things I could have done, Lucius.”

“ _I_ will make my choices from now on.”

“As long as they do not endanger Draco, Harry, me, you, or our standing as a family, I see no reason that will not also be satisfactory.”

Lucius continued to study her as if he assumed she would suddenly change her mind. Narcissa smiled at him serenely. Lucius nodded, and then said, “What should I do if he contacts me again? Or attempts to enter the Manor?”

“Ignore him, as you have been doing. And if he does somehow send a message that makes it through the wards, then you can tell him that your evil wife is keeping you from acknowledging him as is proper.”

Lucius hesitated, then nodded. “You know that he will target you more strongly than ever now.”

“I am looking forward to it.” Narcissa thought of the tantrum he had carried out in her mind, and smiled.

Lucius backed cautiously away, then departed via the now-unlocked Floo, as he had arrived. Narcissa stretched out her arms, humming pleasantly, and cleaned up the remains of the rune circle before settling down to mark the essays she had set the third years. Most of them were less muddle-headed than her husband had been made by his Dark Mark.

*

“Mother! Mother!”

Narcissa was on her feet in a moment with her wand in her hand when she heard that voice, and it only took her a moment longer to realize that the voice calling her name was Harry’s and not Draco’s. He clung to her door, gasping for a second, and then remembered his breathing lessons and said, “Professor Freyasdaughter got Draco to stay alone with her after class. I tried to stay, but she forced me out.”

“Just now?” Narcissa was already moving, heading for the Defense classroom.

“Yes.” Harry was running beside her, drawing a knife as he did. “Five minutes ago, now.”

Narcissa raised an eyebrow in silent praise for how fast he’d reached her office from the classroom, and then concentrated on moving smoothly down the stairs. Harry exhaled and inhaled beside her in a steady rhythm. Although Narcissa wouldn’t have needed the company to defend her son, she found herself taking unexpected pleasure in it as they rounded corners together and floated across landings where Hogwarts tried to move the staircases. Here was the proof that she had trained Harry well

They were outside the Defense classroom so quickly that it was a little stunning. Narcissa drew her wand and listened for a moment. There were no cries for help.

There were no sounds at _all_.

Narcissa concentrated one more time and then kicked the door in. It went flying; the doors of the classrooms were surprisingly flimsy, at least if one had spent time studying where to kick them.

Harry piled in behind her, panting. Idunna was standing with her wand pointed at Draco, but she twisted to blink at them as though she had done nothing wrong. Draco stood quietly, his hands clasped behind his back and the shimmer of his shields still around him.

“What are you doing with my son?” Narcissa asked. She was glad that she was not panting, but she didn’t lower her wand.

“Checking him for traces of Dark magic, of course. The Horcrux influenced you. It might also have influenced him.”

“And you decided that you needed to put a Silencing Charm over the classroom for _that_?” Narcissa asked. She made sure her voice was scathing, and Idunna started to draw herself up.

“The spell sometimes produces pain! I saw no need for the other children to be frightened by his screams if it did.”

Narcissa bit back what she wanted to say, and instead said, slowly and clearly, “I deny you permission to interrogate or cast such spells at my son at any time. Are we _clear_ , Professor Freyasdaughter?”

“I’m afraid that my duty to the other children in the castle, to make sure they are not exposed to such evil, outweighs my respect for your permission.”

Harry’s hand twitched, and Narcissa knew without asking that he was trying to go for a knife, because it was what she would have done in his place. She managed to block him with a quick twist, and smile at Idunna, or give her an expression she could take as a smile. “If Headmistress McGonagall was forced to sack you for not respecting permission, then I think you might reevaluate your priorities.”

Idunna stared at her, and blinked. “I do not understand.”

“ _I know_ ,” Narcissa said, and then shook her head. “All parents have to give permission for their children to experience such spells, Professor Freyasdaughter. I’m surprised that you didn’t know. It’s one reason that Madam Pomfrey has to send off owls if she doesn’t have blanket permission and wants to use a potion that produces enough pain. Last year there was a problem with a young girl who needed Skele-Gro, I believe, and her parents refused permission and took her to St. Mungo’s instead.”

She caught Draco’s eye and motioned with a flick of her eyelid. Draco made his way quietly to her side.

“But—defense against the Dark is one reason that I was hired.”

“And you should know Light spells that do not produce such pain,” Narcissa said, softly, warningly. “I hardly imagine that you were hired to torture students, either.”

“This would not be _torture_.”

“So non-torturous that you put a Silencing Charm on the door of your classroom.”

Idunna looked back and forth between her and Draco, and Narcissa was sure that she _truly_ did not understand. Narcissa would have felt sorry for her if she was not utterly sure that Idunna now deserved to die, and had not intended to let Draco tell her about the spell she had been going to use, either.

“Yes, very well,” Idunna muttered at last. “If you wish to continue to expose other children and your foster son to the evil of a Horcrux, then I suppose I cannot prevent you, Professor Malfoy.” She lowered her own wand and fixed glittering eyes on Narcissa. “But the moment I see him influencing some other child for the worse, then I will attack, Professor Malfoy.”

Narcissa smiled thinly. “Have you made any progress on destroying the one that you have in your possession, Professor Freyasdaughter?”

“I am still researching the best way to do it without using Dark magic.”

“I suggest you research the policies that Hogwarts has regarding children with parents as well,” Narcissa said, and softly closed the classroom door behind her. Then she looked at Draco and waited.

“She didn’t hurt me,” Draco said. “She didn’t even cast a spell on me, just on the desks and chairs around me. I could see the floor blazing like it had runes on it. I didn’t want to move in case I did something wrong and got stung.”

“Good sense,” Narcissa said softly, and let her hand rest on Draco’s hair for a moment. “Are you still able to attend classes with her? I can take you out and tutor you myself, or Harry can, if you don’t feel safe.”

Draco frowned down at the floor for a second, then shook his head. “I think I’ll be all right. I’ll research stronger shields in case she does try to cast that spell on me. And—you’re going to let her live, Mother?”

“For now,” Narcissa said. “But it is very much _for now_.”

Draco seemed to accept the words at face value. Harry was the one who shot her a sideways glance as he reached out and hugged Draco to his side.

Narcissa smiled at him, mouthed, “I shall be impressed if you can guess which one it is,” and then swept off and back towards her quarters. Her sons followed her. She would order the house-elves to bring a private dinner to them so they didn’t have to face Idunna in the Great Hall so soon.

She would need to send a few owls, Narcissa thought as she set up a chessboard for her boys and then settled behind her desk again. She no longer kept the ingredients to brew such a slow-acting poison as Cadmus’s Gift on hand.

But she would have them, and she would brew it, and then she could easily slip it into Idunna’s food on one night when they sat beside each other.

No one touched her son and got away with it.

*

“Professor Malfoy, please come to my office at once.”

The silvery cat Patronus was dissipating almost before Narcissa opened her eyes to see it, but she recognized both Minerva’s Animagus form and her voice. She took enough time to slip out of her sleeping robes into ordinary ones. A summons in the middle of the night was urgent, but not urgent enough to make her abandon good taste.

It seemed that was not the case for Minerva, who was pacing about in a _tartan_ robe when Narcissa stepped through the door from the top of the revolving staircase. Narcissa cast a spell to ease the impact on her eyes and then stood waiting.

Minerva turned to face her, expression so deeply troubled that it seemed as if she might begin to weep at any moment. “Voldemort has conducted an attack on a small village where a number of Muggleborns resided.”

Narcissa nodded slowly. She was surprised she hadn’t felt anything through the blood link, but perhaps Voldemort had learned better than to come into her mind. _A trifle disappointing._ “Why call me in the middle of the night about this? Did one of Harry’s classmates or someone Draco knows die?”

“No.” Minerva hesitated. “Voldemort placed the Dark Mark in the sky above the village, but he also placed a lightning bolt like the one on Harry’s head. I fear that this is a new distraction technique and that other wizards will begin to blame Harry for the attack, or even assume he has joined Voldemort.”

“They will not say such to my face.”

“No, but they don’t necessarily have to. You know how fast gossip spreads in this school.”

Narcissa considered it for a moment, then inclined her head. “Thank you for telling me, Headmistress. I will handle this, and prepare Harry for a new obstacle coming his way. It is hardly as though this is his first.”

“I wish it was,” Minerva said bluntly. “He should never have had to fight this war. But we might as well wish that he had never been targeted by Voldemort in the first place.” She sighed. “The village was wiped out entirely, both Muggleborns and Muggles tortured in—I can put the memory of the Auror’s report into a Pensieve for you if you wish. I can’t speak of it.”

“Perhaps I’ll ask for the memory later. I have work to do now, and there is nothing I would wish Harry to do about it in any case.”

“Yes. I think that’s best. Good night, Professor Malfoy.”

Narcissa nodded back to the Headmistress, and returned thoughtfully to her office. Yes, Voldemort had acted against one of her sons just as Idunna had. But he had done so much else that a slow-acting poison would not suffice for him.

Narcissa thought until she recalled something she had learned early on her training about blood links. It had been a small note in the margin of a much larger tome, one she had never pursued since her tutors said it was the kind of sympathetic magic that hardly ever worked.

But now…

Narcissa called one of the Malfoy house-elves to fetch her the book and one of the Hogwarts ones to bring her a mug of hot chocolate, and then settled down to drink and read. It was a weakness, one she had never trained herself out of, that she had trouble going back to sleep when her slumber had been so abruptly broken in on.

For now, she would use the time.


	7. Part Seven

 

“You wanted to see me, Mother?” Harry was leaning against the wall of her office near the door, his hands flicking restlessly as he played with the knives that hung in his belt.

Narcissa glanced at him and nodded. “You read in the _Daily Prophet_ about the attack that Voldemort tried to blame you for last night?”

Harry snorted a little. “Read about it? I didn’t even get the chance. Seamus woke me up and insisted that I’d probably participated in it, and why was I lying around in bed instead of packing my trunk?”

“I find that I particularly dislike your Housemate Seamus.”

“Oh, don’t do anything permanent to him, please, Mother. He changes his mind about everything at the drop of a pointed hat, but he’s never moved to harm me.”

“His words cut you deeply enough.”

Harry’s eyes slid shut for a moment, and he nodded. “But not as deeply as some of the things people could be doing,” he said. “And I’d rather save my time and energy for _those_ people. Like Umbridge.”

“Very well. Then I leave it up to you how you want to handle the publicity surrounding the attack. _I_ , of course, will be making sure that Voldemort spends most of his time left alive suffering.”

Harry grinned at her and moved across the office to kiss her on the cheek. “I knew there was a reason that you were my favorite foster mother and assassin mentor.”

Narcissa cupped her hand around the back of his neck for a moment, marveling at how much might have been different if Draco hadn’t sullenly expressed his desire for Harry Potter to pay attention to him in his first year. “Happy hunting, son.”

Harry gave her a smile and slipped out the door.

*

Narcissa put Cadmus’s Gift into Idunna’s tea the next morning. It was pathetically easy. Despite the amount of detection charms hovering around Idunna’s person, and the gold chains braided into her hair, and the way she bragged that she was so Light that Dark magic would simply wither around her, nothing reacted as Narcissa turned the poison invisible and sent it pouring in from a distance with a modified _Aguamenti_ Charm.

Of course, that might be because Cadmus’s Gift was a fantastically rare poison and Idunna believed that she shouldn’t have to defend herself from it at all, or didn’t know it existed. But in that case, Narcissa could only disapprove of her lack of paranoia.

It would take time for the poison to take effect. Narcissa did not care. Idunna deserved a slow death. And if she tried to harm or corner Draco again, then Narcissa could speed the process up.

Or use more than one method to hurt her. That possibility was sweet as well.

*

“Professor Malfoy, I don’t understand why you can continue to have Potter in this class! He might hurt someone!”

That was Hannah Abbott, one of the brainless girls who should be glad that Hufflepuff existed, as she wouldn’t have fit in anywhere else. Narcissa turned around politely from the front of the classroom. Harry’s shoulders had hunched momentarily before his face blanked and turned smooth, and he faced his start chart again.

Narcissa had told him that she would leave the publicity about the attack to him, but it made a difference when that negative publicity invaded _her classroom_.

“Perhaps, Miss Abbott,” Narcissa said politely, “you might consider that the tactic of placing a green and black lightning bolt beside a Dark Mark is a pathetically obvious one meant to stir fear and confusion? In other words, it fits exactly the dissension that Voldemort has tried to sow in the past. I don’t know why you, in particular, are falling for this distraction, but you might want to visit Madam Pomfrey to make sure that enough blood is circulating in your brain.”

Some other members of the NEWT class giggled, but Abbott only flushed heavily. “He could still be dangerous!”

Harry leaned back in his chair and exchanged an amused glance with her. Of _course_ he was dangerous, but not in the way that Abbott was thinking of. Knowing that he could slit her throat in an instant and be out of range before the girl’s blood had sprayed the students sitting next to her calmed Narcissa.

“And so could anyone here who is a sixth-year wizard trained in some of the spells you have learned in classes. However, only one person here is currently being _disruptive_ , Miss Abbott.”

“You’re just trying to cover for him because he’s your foster son!”

Narcissa sighed. “Detention, Miss Abbott. I believe that you may not have done your homework, and you are trying to distract me?”

As it turned out, she _knew_ Abbott hadn’t done her homework, since she’d overheard her chattering about it with her friends as she came into the classroom. But Abbott flushed as though that was unfair, and was quiet for the rest of the class. Honestly, that was all Narcissa wanted. She highly doubted a Hufflepuff would dare confront her son.

Abbott did dare to come up to her at the conclusion of class, her face set in that classically stubborn Hufflepuff expression. “I’m just _concerned_ about having a student in class who could threaten us, Professor Malfoy.”

“And as I said before, anyone could do that,” Narcissa said, moving the homework she had received into a neat stack. “If you are seriously concerned, however, then you could appeal to the Board of Governors.”

Bones, another Hufflepuff girl hovering behind Abbott, opened her mouth, but Abbott seemed determined to carry out her suicidal impulses today. “But your husband is on the Board of Governors! That’s not fair, either!”

“Then complain to the Headmistress.”

“But she was Potter’s Head of House!”

“If every recourse to justice is unjust,” Narcissa told her softly, “then perhaps you should think about the justice of your _complaint_.”

Bones tugged on Abbott’s arm. It didn’t work. Abbott lifted her nose and said, “I don’t feel safe in a classroom with Potter. What happened if I stopped attending class?”

“You would receive a failing mark in NEWT Astronomy, Miss Abbott.”

Abbott only stared at her with her lips slightly parted. Narcissa looked back, more than a little bored. Honestly, the girl was probably used to professors catering to her because was a Hufflepuff, or pure-blood, or a pretty girl, or something of that kind. She hadn’t yet realized that she held no power in Narcissa’s classroom.

“I’m going to talk to the Headmistress,” Abbott finally said, and swept out of the classroom looking as if the world had tilted beneath her feet and she didn’t understand it. Susan Bones sighed and followed her, after giving a slightly apologetic look towards Harry, Narcissa was interested to note.

“You’ve had trouble with them?” Narcissa asked, when she and Harry were the only ones left.

Harry shrugged and gathered up the satchel. He was training with new weapons today, Narcissa noted, given the careful way he moved so as not to disturb or reveal the blades under his clothing. “Not lately. That group of Hufflepuffs thought I was evil for a while because I can speak Parseltongue.”

Narcissa nodded understandingly. Well, as long as Harry was not losing dear friends and none of them made a physical move to harm him, Narcissa would tolerate their childishness. “Get on now, dear. You’ve already lost enough sleep to these late classes as it is.”

Harry smiled at her and left, the sound of his footsteps melting into silence on the stairs of the Astronomy Tower far faster than the other students’. Narcissa turned and faced one of the great open arched windows of the classroom.

She had researched in the tome she remembered and other books until she was sure that this form of sympathetic magic would work. It helped that Voldemort had stolen _her_ blood, specifically; if he had taken the blood from several people, or even from other members of the Black or Malfoy family, the magic she used now would have affected them as well. But she could use the individual link and subdue the effects when they tried to come for her.

Narcissa picked up the small cauldron that had sat behind the desk, out of sight of the students, and carried it to the window. Unlike a potion, it had no liquid base at the moment. It was simply a collection of ingredients: the caps of amanita mushrooms, shredded leaves of belladonna, the swim bladder of a blowfish, the legs of a brown recluse spider, the stinger of a tarantula hawk wasp, the shell of a cone snail, the wing feathers of a blue-capped ifrit, the flayed skin of a poison dart frog, the fangs of a black mamba, the tail of a water shrew, and a dollop of cholera-infested water. Narcissa aligned the cauldron so that the starlight that came through the nearest window was falling on it and picked up a knife.

Her research into Astronomy would stand her in good stead after all. Sooner or later, Voldemort would be touched by the starlight.

“Lord Voldemort, Tom Marvolo Riddle, Jr.,” Narcissa said, speaking carefully. The ritual required true names, but it was impossible to tell at this point which one he thought was more real or really his. “By the connection of our blood, I curse you. Cursed to you be flesh of fungus, plant, fish, arachnid, insect, mollusc, bird, amphibian, reptile, and mammal. Cursed to you be the water. By the blood we share, suffer my curse.”

She cut her finger, and the blood spread carefully down the silver knife and began to drip off the edge. Narcissa positioned the blade so that every ingredient received a portion of her blood. When the glimmering water had become infested with it, the whole cauldron began to glow.

Narcissa stepped back and healed her hand. The cauldron shone more and more brilliantly, with a mingled red and silver light that reminded Narcissa of some of the moon-runes that Lucius’s ancestors had used in the warding of Malfoy Manor. Then the light narrowed into a single point and sped rapidly away up the beam of starlight.

Narcissa braced herself, and stepped into the path of the starlight.

Her blood curled in radiant pain and heat through her body immediately. Narcissa sank to her knees, her arms clenched around her stomach, convinced she would vomit blood any second. But the discipline held, and she reached back along the connections that tied her to Lucius and Draco, to Sirius, even to her imprisoned sister and her discarded one, bracing herself, drawing on their love or their memories of love and kinship.

The pain gripped her stomach once more. Then it dissipated, and Narcissa stood slowly, wiping the back of her mouth where a small red trickle had leaked.

She smiled coldly. Voldemort had no other blood relatives within the same generation, the one before, or the one after that could help him bear the curse. The whole of it would therefore fall on him.

And unable to eat or drink anything, he would slowly starve to death. Narcissa did not think it would be as quick as a death of starvation or thirst usually was, of course. Voldemort’s unnatural body did not take as much sustenance or possibly the same kind as other human beings did.

But even if he fed on the venom of his snake, which Narcissa thought a strong possibility, it would be closed to him now, with the flesh of reptiles cursed to poison him.

Narcissa chuckled, and enjoyed the slight, distant vibration of agony and rage in her mind as the curse began to affect Voldemort.

*

“I have discovered a way to destroy the Horcrux without turning to Dark Arts.”

Narcissa turned to face Idunna. The woman acted as if their altercation over Draco had never taken place, simply walking into her classroom to make the announcement. “What method is that?”

“To surround it with purity.” Idunna took a seat without asking for permission, her eyes narrowed on Narcissa, probably looking for some sign of shadows in her face. “Purified water, fire born of Light magic, and earth blessed by the touch of a unicorn’s hoof.”

“You will not use the element of air?”

“It is too chancy. Three elements will form a triangle, which is a more stable and useful magical symbol than a square.”

Narcissa thought of telling her that _she_ had been thinking in terms of a circle, not a square, but then shrugged off the thought. All that mattered was that Idunna had found something she thought might work. Narcissa pretended to an expression of polite interest, while silently plotting on how to claim the Horcrux back and destroy it with Fiendfyre if this didn’t work. “Will you need me for anything?”

“I want you to purify the water.”

“Why, when my magic is Dark and you suspect me of being influenced by the Horcrux?”

“To show that _Light_ witches and wizards can forgive.” Idunna gave her a smile so condescending that Narcissa was a little surprised it didn’t slide and drip off her face. “I forgive you for interfering with my attempts to secure safety for the students of Hogwarts. If you wish to keep your son safe at the expense of others, I suspect that I cannot fight you.”

“I want my son _and_ the other students safe.”

Idunna shrugged, making the chimes in her hair tinkle softly. “They cannot be if he has been dabbling in Dark magic. And your foster son, as well. Have you considered educating them at home? So that other students need not be exposed to them?”

Narcissa smiled as she remembered what the Cadmus’s Gift potion would do once it had some time to work on Idunna. “I never considered such a thing. All children deserve the right to come to Hogwarts.”

“Including Muggleborns?”

“One of my sons counts a Muggleborn among his dearest friends. Of course I believe they should have the right to an equal education.”

Idunna blinked. “But such is not the typical position of Dark wizards and witches. I believe that Voldemort has also opposed the right of Muggleborns to live in our world.”

“Yes, and I am not him.”

“But you are influenced by a Horcrux.” Idunna turned and studied her from another angle, as if the literal position of her head was all that was needed for Narcissa to make sense. “It would seem that you should have adopted some of his attitudes and perspectives.”

“That is not one of them.”

Idunna continued to stare at her in silence, apparently having no conception of manners. Narcissa wondered idly whether Light wizards and witches got lessons in self-righteousness instead. “You make very little sense,” Idunna said, as if to herself.

“I hope that I make sense where _I_ am concerned,” Narcissa said, and no more. “Will you show me the spells that you want me to use to purify the water, so that I can make sure I match the Light standard for the ritual? I would not want to make a hash of it by purifying the water in a Dark way.”

Whatever lessons Light wizards and witches received in place of manners, sarcasm was not part of them. Idunna said absently, “Yes, I will show you the spells.” She stood and rested her hands on the back of her chair. “I wonder if I was mistaken about the Horcrux’s influence over you.”

Narcissa widened her eyes. “I am sure that you would not be wrong about _such_ a thing.”

“I wonder if perhaps the influence has emerged in your children, instead of in you directly.”

“You have been to the Headmistress and asked her about the permission required from parents to cast certain spells on the children?”

“I have. And it does seem that the school has rules, which I suppose I should have known you would know, since your husband is on the Board of Governors. But if I see that such a rule is getting in the way of saving and serving other children, you already know what I will do.”

“You might find yourself in trouble with the Headmistress if you do.”

“I serve the higher good.”

 _Which is probably just another term for the greater good that Minerva found in Dumbledore’s notes,_ Narcissa thought. But she had already taken her revenge, and it would be interesting if there was a way to destroy Horcruxes that did not involve the risks of basilisk venom, Fiendfyre, or the ritual that she and Sirius had done to help Harry.

“Very well. Please show me the Light spells that you would like me to use.”

Idunna conjured water into a glass that she just happened to be carrying in her pocket, and began showing Narcissa the spells that seemed to lift any impurities off the water like a skim or mist, and then burned them away. It was an interesting spell that Narcissa was glad to have learned, not least for the way that it taught her about the way Idunna thought. Of course she would believe that she could burn through the Darkness if she saw it happening with situations like this.

But that would do nothing to protect her from Narcissa.


	8. Part Eight

“You’ll never guess what happened today,” Harry said, flinging himself onto the chair that stood in the corner of Narcissa’s office.

Narcissa glanced up at him with one eyebrow raised. “I suppose I will not, if you do not tell me about it.”

Harry grinned and touched a knife under his arm for a moment. “Hannah Abbott challenged me to a wizard’s duel. She made poor Susan her second before Susan could get out of it. I had to tell her twice that I wasn’t going to fight her right outside the Great Hall before she believed it.”

Narcissa shook her head. “And then did you slaughter her?”

“I made sure that we had a huge audience when I went up on a staircase that no one was using because most people were already headed towards the Great Hall for dinner by then. I held my hands away from my body and kept talking about how I didn’t want to fight her, how she was forcing me to. Hannah was starting to look a little nervous. Anyway, she tried to use a Blasting Curse on me. I blocked it and shattered one of the bannisters, then Disarmed her and told her she could have her wand back when she stopped being stupid.”

“And if she needs the wand for schoolwork?”

“I checked the Hogwarts rules. Headmistress McGonagall helped me. I think she felt a little sorry for me with everyone muttering about how I must have joined Voldemort in the raid on that village. And the rules say that someone who wins a wizard’s duel and Disarms their opponent can keep the opponent’s wand until the opponent fulfills the condition set for them.”

Narcissa smiled at last. She should have more trust in Harry’s ability to handle situations like this, she supposed. She had trained him hard for a reason. “And how is Miss Abbott going to stop being stupid?”

“An apology to me and a statement that she knows I didn’t have anything to do with the attack would be fine.” Harry lay back on the couch and tossed a wand Narcissa suspected was Abbott’s into the air. “And I know that you put some kind of poison in Freyasdaughter’s tea, but I wanted to set a contingency spell myself.”

“Contingency spells are advanced magic.”

“I _know_ that, Mother. I know all about the things that can go wrong if you use the wrong words. That’s why I’m going to think really carefully about how to word it before I cast the spell.”

After a moment, Narcissa nodded. She had to have more trust in Harry over something like this as well. “And what will the contingency say?”

“It’ll activate instant death for Freyasdaughter if she ever casts a spell on Draco that causes him pain.”

Narcissa folded her hands and watched Harry patiently. Harry watched her back, and then sighed and said, “All _right_ , what did I forget?”

“Besides my own revenge and the fact that Draco may well want to defend himself instead of having you standing up for him, as he has already proven? The fact that Freyasdaughter is the Defense professor and may cast curses at Draco during class that could hurt him.”

“She doesn’t _need_ to.”

“She would not be a very good Defense professor if she never cast such. And Draco’s shields and practice with you may not always be enough to hold them back. We want her dead for a _reason_ , dear. Not due to a poorly-worded contingency spell. There are other methods of gaining vengeance, as I have told you often.”

Harry touched the knife that Narcissa knew hung under his arm again and pouted until Narcissa gave him another patient look. Then he wiped the unattractive expression off and muttered, “So I don’t have a lot of choice but to wait until she hurts Draco?”

“There are many measures in place to guard Draco. Instead of thinking of this as depriving you of your revenge, you may wish to think on how you will encourage Draco’s confidence in his own plans. Does he not deserve his own revenge?”

Harry thought about that, and finally nodded. He got up to kiss her before he left the office. “Sorry, Mother. Sometimes I feel this red _rage_ come down on me at the thought of anyone hurting him, and then I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“You can use that rage,” Narcissa told him softly. “What you must do is channel it and look out for future threats to Draco, ones that he may not be able to handle himself, not one that is already handled and right in front of you.”

“You make me sound oblivious when you put it that way.”

“Sometimes you are, darling.”

After a second, Harry gave her a reluctant smile, and then turned and walked through the door without more of a farewell. Narcissa rolled her eyes indulgently. _The pride of the young._

Well, so long as it never got him or Draco hurt, then Narcissa could afford to indulge it, sometimes. She was still smiling as she went back to marking essays.

*

“You have learned the spell, Professor Malfoy?”

“I have, Professor Freyasdaughter.” Unsaid went the implication that Narcissa wouldn’t have approached Idunna in the first place if she hadn’t learned them.

Idunna turned back to the room they stood in. It had originally been a simple classroom near the one where Idunna taught Defense Against the Dark Arts, as far as Narcissa could make out, but now it was inscribed on the walls and ceiling with small circles and other geometric shapes that flared with blue and silver and gold as Idunna ran through them one by one.

Narcissa studied them. She wasn’t familiar enough with Light magic to say what they were for certain, but she recognized their general protective and creative intent. And containment, as well. If something happened to both of them, Idunna was ensuring that the Horcrux’s influence would not spread beyond this room.

Narcissa could approve of the general theory, although in practice she would only want to defend three people in the world. Perhaps four if one added Sirius, she supposed.

“Now,” Idunna said, and faced the center of the room, where a pot of earth, the carafe of water that Narcissa was in charge of purifying, and a blazing brazier stood in a triangle. In the center of the triangle lay Ravenclaw’s diadem.

Narcissa cast the spells that Idunna had taught her to purify the water, keeping her eyes on the fire. The earth itself had a faint hoofprint pressed into it, and had probably been purified by the touch of a unicorn, just as Idunna had told her. The fire, born of Light magic, swayed and lunged towards Narcissa at times. She did not entirely trust it to stay within the confines of the brazier.

But it had not broken free by the time Narcissa finished the purification spells, and Idunna took a step back and spread her hands. She began to chant in slow, sonorous Latin that Narcissa wanted to roll her eyes at. The endings of the words had been rounded off so that they made little grammatical sense.

_Perhaps they are more conducive to Light magic, the less sense they make._

At first, nothing seemed to be happening. Then a blue glow lifted from the water, forming the image of a triangle floating above the carafe. It was answered by a blue flash from what seemed to be a third of the runes covering the walls and ceiling.

The earth responded next. Its color was the silver of a unicorn, and it formed a sphere instead of a triangle, as another third of the runes flashed silver. Narcissa gripped her wand. She wasn’t familiar enough with the ritual to be sure that something was going wrong, but it seemed at least possible.

Idunna’s fire came last, and it had turned as gold as a phoenix’s tail. It didn’t produce a shape of its own, but merely echoed the golden glow of the runes, and the golden charms in Idunna’s hair. She was the one who moved up to stand between the earth and the fire, her hands clenched in on each other.

“Now, Professor Malfoy.”

Worried though she was by the lack of a third balancing participant in the ritual, Narcissa took her place between the water and the earth. She had enough magic on herself to save her life if something went wrong.

“We ask for the purified water to help us,” Idunna said, voice low and gradually soaring as she began to speak faster and faster. Narcissa winced a little as shrill sounds filled the air around them, the charms in Idunna’s hair chiming. “We ask for the purified earth to help us. We ask for the pure fire to help us, and _save us from this evil_.”

Idunna stared straight at the Horcrux. Magic rushed past Narcissa and shoved the diadem into the final gap between the fire and the water.

For a moment, the Horcrux began to emit black vapor, and Narcissa was sure that it would manage to stop what they were doing to it. But then the water rose from the carafe and splashed over it, and the earth followed.

The black vapor was smothered, and Narcissa heard a distant shriek, not dissimilar to the ones that Voldemort uttered when she battled him in her mind. She smiled.

“Now, the fire,” Idunna said, and moved her hands in a complex gesture that didn’t include her wand but did seem to include traces of a circle.

The fire shot out from its brazier, a level sheet of it that reminded Narcissa of how some dragons breathed. It surrounded the soaking bundle of dirt that was the Horcrux, and for a long moment, Narcissa thought it would hover there like an aura.

Then it moved in.

The Horcrux began to burn. The wail returned, stronger this time, and the diadem vibrated, shaking off most of the earth and water. The fire closed in further and further, and Narcissa thought she saw the sapphire in the diadem opening like an angry eye.

Then a brilliant burst of silver, gold, and blue light filled the room as all the runes were drained of their power at once. Narcissa found herself taking a step back, a protective hand rising before her eyes. Luckily, she didn’t manage to move completely out of the triangle, and it didn’t break.

Instead, the Horcrux screamed one more time, and then the sound abruptly cut off.

Narcissa lowered her hand and found herself staring at a large scorch patch on the floor. Idunna stood over and spoke in some more of that modified Latin, waving her wand. A black mist cleared off, shrinking some of the burn marks, and was gone.

“You backed away as if you doubted my power to keep you safe,” Idunna said, lifting her head. There was a gold light lingering in the backs of her eyes, which told Narcissa how powerfully Light the magic was. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I could not help it,” Narcissa said, poised as she lied. She was used to that, after all. “The pain of the Horcrux’s influence being yanked out of me would not let me stand still.”

Idunna smiled, and Narcissa reflected that she might have made an intelligent woman with a little less focus on the Light. “Then I am glad that you helped me in this ritual. I had my doubts about you, but being returned to your normal self…”

“It feels wonderful,” Narcissa said, and smiled at her, while imagining what the Cadmus’s Gift poison would begin to do to her soon.

*

 _Three Horcruxes gone,_ Narcissa thought that evening, as she watched her sons practicing defense spells both higher-level and Darker than any they would see in Idunna’s class. _A good start, but we must think about retrieving some others soon._

Harry waited until he had Draco panting and on the defensive, then dropped him with a Stunner that Draco’s Shield Charm didn’t come down far enough to defend against. Harry shook his head as Draco dropped onto the Cushioning Charm already in place. “That will teach him not to protect his legs. Mother, what does this sign mean?”

Narcissa looked up from the third-year essay that appeared to have been copied from the Astronomy textbook, and raised her eyebrows at the sign floating in fire in the air in front of Harry. “That is the sign of the Deathly Hallows. Where did you run across it? Reading children’s books again?”

Harry only grinned at her, knowing her teasing was gentle. It wasn’t as though Harry had had a _chance_ to read wizarding children’s books until he became part of the Malfoy family. “No, I saw it in photographs from Grindelwald’s day. I’ve been reading History on my own, you know. I thought I’d look up why people thought Dumbledore was so great.”

“That is the sign Grindelwald fought under as well, that is true. But it originally comes from the Tale of the Three Brothers.”

Harry nodded, looking pleased with himself. “If great Dark wizards can believe in children’s tales, then I don’t feel bad for reading them.” He went to revive Draco, unaware of the trail of fire he had sparked in Narcissa’s mind.

 _The Elder Wand was supposedly a tool of ultimate power. If we can make Voldemort believe that we have that in our possession, or knowledge of where it is to be found, that might lure him close enough for me to read his mind for knowledge of the Horcruxes._ Narcissa had already tried probing through the blood connection they shared, but perhaps because it was a blood and not a Horcrux link, she had encountered little success in reading Voldemort’s specific thoughts. They seemed to meet better on the battlefield of the mind, and Legilimency was still an art better practiced face-to-face.

_He might believe the Elder Wand could cure him, or defeat his enemies. And there is the fact that he and Harry have brother wands. He would want something else with which to face him. Or me._

Narcissa nodded, decision made, and called a house-elf to fetch yet more books from the Manor. It was somewhat troubling that the Manor was better-stocked than the Hogwarts library, but considering how esoteric some of these subjects were, perhaps it should not bother her.

She could always offer to donate copies of the books she had used to Hogwarts, but somehow, she thought the Headmistress might object.

*

“Your plan is sound. But you should let me be the one to lure the Dark Lord with tales of the Elder Wand.”

Narcissa looked calmly at Lucius through the flames, and said, “How can you? Would Voldemort not curse you as a traitor the moment you approached him?”

“He enslaved me for years and destroyed the clarity of my mind, the integrity of my soul. Let me have this moment of revenge, Narcissa.”

“I would not deny it to you. I only want to know _how_ you could survive carrying the tales to him when his suspicions are so great now. Even if you believed that you are unwillingly attaining your freedom, he would want revenge on me for cursing him.”

Lucius smiled grimly. “There are locations where the Death Eaters met during the first war that are not currently under the Dark Lord’s control. Give me enough time to trap them with the proper defensive spells and protections, and I could arrange to meet him there and show him these supposed memories of the Elder Wand.”

“In a Pensieve, Lucius. I don’t want him inside your mind.”

“You think that I am an idiot, Narcissa?”

Narcissa smiled. _Yes, he is much more fun this way._ “First we need to create a replica of the Elder Wand that would pass muster. Should we hire Olllivander, or do you think we can create something that would seem to be real in a memory?”

“The fewer people outside our family we involve, the better. And the Dark Lord will probably soon move to shutter the shops in Diagon Alley in any case. I can Transfigure a wand from wood, Narcissa. It will take me some time, but those skills are returning to me along with my clarity of thought.”

“And then I will arrange to be at the meeting location. Harry will let me borrow his Invisibility Cloak. I think it safer than trying any more conventional means of concealing myself from Voldemort’s notice.”

Lucius nodded, his eyes full of clear fire. “There are several we could use, and I will have to consider them carefully to decide which one is best and which one will take the fewest defenses to utilize…”

Narcissa listened to her husband plot with her, silently rejoicing over many traits that would probably have offended him if she had mentioned them. He had put his family first, rather than trusting blindly in someone outside it. He had added his own nuance to the plans, instead of simply going along with what she mentioned.

His skin shone with a subtle return of health and magic, which had been banished for years while the Dark Mark grew stronger.

For the first time in those years, Narcissa was as confident that she had made the best possible choices when young as she was now.


	9. Part Nine

Narcissa stood in the shadows under Harry’s Invisibility Cloak and her own Disillusionment Charm. They were in an abandoned house that had no name Lucius knew. Narcissa, noting the tiny carved ravens that loomed in every corner of the room and paraded around the tops of the door-lintels, though she might be able to guess the last name of the family it had once belonged to.

But then again, the family was long dead. The most important person in the room was the one that Narcissa _needed_ to bring death to.

“Lucius. You claim that your wife controlled you?” Voldemort’s voice was an arrogant hiss. The snake draped around him flickered her tongue now and again, but did not seem to scent Narcissa. She hid a smile. Magically-enhanced beasts—to increase the snake’s size, in this case—often lost some of their natural powers.

“Yes, my lord.” Lucius could do a more graceful and deceitful impression of bowing in place than Narcissa had seen him manage in years. Eliminating the Dark Mark a little at a time was truly an improvement for him.

“And how do I know that this is the truth and not a _trick_?”

One of Voldemort’s pale hands shot out as he spoke, squeezing down on Lucius’s shoulder in a way that would leave a painful bruise. But Lucius did not gasp or cry out. He only tilted his head back and met Voldemort’s gaze blandly, shaking his head a little. “You know because I have valuable information to give you, my lord, on the curse that my wife cast on you.”

“ _Tell me_ ,” Voldemort said, so guttural that it was nearly Parseltongue. Lucius shuffled a little, so that his back was more directly to Narcissa, and that meant Voldemort was bent over him and his eyes were also facing her disguised form.

Narcissa slipped rapidly into his mind. She found shields almost everywhere, but she was looking, now, more for emotions, and for the distinctive signature of their blood link. She found it, and followed it quietly through weak places in the shields that had probably appeared since her starvation curse had begun to deprive Voldemort of the little sanity he had left.

She managed a glimpse of the snake draped around him, then an image of the snake wearing a golden locket. That was all she got before the shields came down again and Narcissa had to retreat before she became trapped in Voldemort’s mind.

Narcissa retreated physically, too, and waited until Lucius was done in a thoughtful frame of mind. Voldemort had risked making another living Horcrux? But then, of course, he did not know that Harry had been one at all.

And he probably assumed that the snake was ultimately loyal to him and spent all her time around him in any case. He would see little risk that someone could succeed in turning or killing his pet.

Narcissa smiled. She already had a plan in mind to deprive Voldemort of his pet’s company sooner rather than later.

*

At the High Table during the evening meal a fortnight later, Idunna dropped her fork.

Narcissa, who was seated beside her as usual, turned around with a solicitous frown that was too practiced to reveal how she really felt. “Are you well, Professor Freysdaughter? Did one of the students throw a prank at the table?” She glanced around as though searching for a nonexistent culprit.

“It’s nothing,” Idunna whispered. “A bit of stomach trouble. I think I shall—take my leave.” And she rose and all but fled from the Great Hall, which made the students start whispering until the Headmistress glared them into silence.

Narcissa smiled and went on eating. She was anticipating Draco and Harry’s visit to her quarters, but she ignored their questions until the door was safely sealed behind them and wards that would alert her to the existence of any eavesdroppers or their spells were up over the door and windows.

“What was that, Mother? Your revenge, but you never told us exactly what the poison would entail,” Draco said, folding his arms as he scowled at her.

“We know the poison is called Cadmus’s Gift,” Harry added as he sat on a couch behind Draco, bouncing his leg and staring at her expectantly. “But that’s all.”

“From the name, you should be able to figure out what it does.”

“I _did_ try to look it up in the library. It was too obscure. I couldn’t find any references to it in the books.”

“She probably thinks that we can figure it out from the mythological reference, Draco. But I have to admit, Mother, I’ve studied the myths about Cadmus, since I didn’t know them very well, and I can’t come up with an answer.”

“Cadmus is famous for several things. But he received one particular gift, from Athena, once he had killed a dragon—”

“He sowed the dragon’s teeth, and a race of armed warriors came up!” Draco said triumphantly, a moment before Harry tried to say the same thing. For a moment, they glared at each other.

“And now there are blades piercing her from the inside?” Harry asked, turning to face Narcissa.

Narcissa smiled at him. “You’re emphasizing the wrong aspects of the gift, darling.”

“Not blades,” Draco said, eyes widening. “ _Teeth_.”

Narcissa toasted him with her vine-carved silver goblet of mulled wine. “Exactly, Draco. Idunna will feel the pain of the teeth flowering to life in her, and chewing their way through her stomach and liver. When she manages to expel the teeth that have grown in her, the remaining seeds will sprout. They are living all throughout her now, in the corners of her flesh and guts where no Healer would think to look. Unless a Healer thought to look _exactly_ during the attacks, in fact, they would never find any teeth. They might be tempted to dismiss her pain as simple incidences of food poisoning.”

“And the attacks are brief,” Harry murmured. “Ingenious, Mother.”

“I do want to take revenge and _not_ go to Azkaban, of course, dear.”

“Are they going to kill her?” Draco asked, rolling over so that he could stare at her. He looked as if he were pondering the idea of her as an indirect murderer.

Narcissa nodded at him. “Eventually, of course.”

Draco looked a bit unnerved. “I would never have the courage to do something like that to someone.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Harry said, fiercely enough that Narcissa suspected that this was an argument they had had more than one rendition of. “You still managed to protect yourself against that bitch when it counted. And you can keep on defending yourself. I’m rubbish at politics, but you could be great if you worked on it more.”

“You don’t think I’m great at politics _now_?”

“Not with the problems that you told me you’ve been having in Slytherin!”

“What kinds of problems are these?”

Both her boys froze and glanced at her. Narcissa watched their faces. At last, she nodded, and both Draco and Harry relaxed with a whoosh of breath. Narcissa smiled.

“As long as you handle it as discreetly as you have,” she said, and shrugged a little, “then I have no reason to worry about it.”

That got her as smiles as bright as the guilty looks had been dark. Narcissa sipped her wine and listened as Draco then inveigled Harry into a political debate about who among the students was going to go over to Voldemort.

She had thought at one point that she would resent the point when Draco grew up. The same thought had occurred to her when she had adopted Harry. She felt in the bones that she was meant to defend them and smooth their paths in life. What would she do when they grew old enough not to need her?

But now they had reached that point, and it was more pleasant than she could have imagined.

*

Narcissa wrapped the cloak more firmly around her face—although a mask with an illusion anchored to it defended that as well—and ducked into Borgin and Burke’s.

A small alarm ward clanged above her head. It sounded like a bell, but Narcissa knew the sounds of all the common alarms, and could tell the difference. This one would wake its caster out of a sound sleep, no matter how quiet it was.

A second later, Borgin came out of the back of the shop, bowing and wiping soft hands on an apron-like garment he wore over his robes. Narcissa glimpsed dark gobbets soaked in blood before Borgin’s wand swished and took care of them. “What can I do for you, my dear madam?”

Narcissa hadn’t made the spells deep enough to disguise her sex, so she was unalarmed by him knowing that much about her. “I am not sure that you can help me,” she said, in a voice deliberately more cool and haughty than she would have used if she had come here openly. “I am looking for a _specific_ item, you see.”

“There are many specific items here, of course!” Borgin swept his hand out and beamed at her in a way that he probably thought ingratiating. He obviously had no use for dental charms. “Please, look to your heart’s content. Although of course you might also tell me what you’re looking for…”

“A locket,” Narcissa said, in the tones Lucius used when he had to explain an order to a house-elf more than once. “Made of gold, with a snake made of emeralds on the front. Or perhaps you would say an S made of emeralds. Some people do.” She sniffed to convey what she thought of these people.

Borgin froze, his eyes widening. “You’re talking about Salazar Slytherin’s locket?”

“It belonged to him at one time,” Narcissa said, offhand. “I am more interested in it due to its Peverell associations.”

“I didn’t think a Peverell ever owned that locket.”

“The Peverells married Slytherin’s descendants, the Gaunts,” Narcissa said, and made her voice soft and slow. “Or do you not know even _that_ much pure-blood history?”

Borgin flushed. “My pure-blood history is perfectly fine!”

“Then perhaps I shall find the locket here,” Narcissa said, and turned, apparently dismissing him. A mirror on the wall began to swirl with bloody colors as she looked into it. Narcissa sniffed, and the mirror stopped, apparently disconcerted.

“Actually—I think that my father’s partner, Caractacus Burke, had the locket at one time. But he sold it, of course.”

“Did he?” Narcissa turned back. “I suppose this kind of shop does not keep records of its customers, and would not know—”

“Of course we keep records!”

“Then you can tell me who bought the locket.”

Burke clasped his hands behind his back as if to keep the blood from staining anything, although of course it already would have at the angle he’d held his hands at. His gaze skittered away from her. “I can’t do that,” he whispered. “My clients do have the expectation of confidentiality.”

Narcissa laughed in genuine surprise. She hadn’t thought that someone like Borgin would have any principles at all, but of course she should have known he needed _this_ one to operate a successful shop.

“I love being surprised,” she said. “It happens so rarely.”

“Madam?”

Narcissa stepped towards him and held out her wand. “You don’t need to move,” she told Borgin, who tried anyway and found his feet rooted to the floor. “I’ll just take what I need and then leave you to your own pursuits.”

She dived into his mind and found a memory easily, pulled to the forefront of his thoughts by the conversation. Borgin had leafed through the ledgers as a child, fascinated by the records of the treasures that had marched through the shop’s doors. He had hit the page where Slytherin’s locket was recorded, furious that it had been sold for what he thought a low price.

And it had gone to a woman named Hepzibah Smith.

Narcissa withdrew from Borgin’s mind, thoughtful. Of course the last name was common even among Muggles, but many Smiths were supposedly descendants of Hufflepuff. And Hepzibah was rare in either world.

“Wh—what did you do to me?”

“Read your mind. And then changed it,” Narcissa added, and _Obliviated_ him. She turned and left the shop, pondering as she did if she should try to find Hepzibah Smith directly, or do some indirect research before approaching her or her heirs. Perhaps the latter. Harry and Draco might like to help her on it.

*

Narcissa glanced up from her marking as the Floo turned green. Lucius stepped through it. He looked as though he was wrestling with some internal decision. Narcissa sat quietly back and waited.

Lucius exhaled, inhaled, exhaled again, and went on until Narcissa wondered if she was being asked to witness his meditation practice instead of his decision. Then he said, “I want things to be the way they were between us.”

Narcissa laid aside her quill. She already knew the third-year Ravenclaw in front of her was going to get a Troll for repeating the same sentence five times. “The way they were before the Dark Mark began to cloud your mind, you mean?”

“Yes.” Lucius took a step towards her. Then he looked as if he might take one backwards when Narcissa stood up from behind the desk. Narcissa waited, calmly, for where his will would lead him.

Then Lucius hissed between his teeth, as if exasperated with himself, and came close enough that he could clasp her shoulders and kiss her.

Narcissa sighed and lifted a hand to caress his cheek. Then she led him out of the sitting room where she marked essays and Harry and Draco trained to the bedroom of her quarters.

Lucius stared at her nervously as she undressed, but Narcissa knew him well, knew the moment when his breathing quickened, and his eyes got stuck on the creamy skin of her breasts as they emerged from the robe. Narcissa shook out her hair and then paused and looked a dazed Lucius in the eye.

“Well? Why are you still dressed?”

Luckily, _that_ problem was solved quickly. And they did indeed resume the way things had been.

*

Narcissa catapulted out of sleep. Her mind was filled with grim triumph, and when she opened her eyes, the blood link she had with Voldemort meant that she saw images of blood streaking the walls and running in black streams along the floor and through the grooves in the stone.

Narcissa gripped her wand. If he was that happy with himself, then—

_You thought you could stop me!_

The words howled through Narcissa’s head. She began to strengthen her Occlumency shields without replying. She was sure that she would find out, in a few hours at most, what Voldemort had done. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with a madman.

She heard one more howl before the shields strengthened. Next to her, Lucius was stirring and murmuring something, his hand groping for her.

“Voldemort,” Narcissa told him, which made him sit up. Narcissa gathered up the fur-lined cloak that she had worn on a few assassinations when looking flashy would let her pass unnoticed. It was long and thick enough to keep her warm no matter what the weather, and it would conceal the decided lack of clothing she wore underneath it.

“What ‘bout him?”

“Something happened. He yelled it into my head. I fear this may be another attempt to frame Harry.” Narcissa pulled the robe closed in front and used a mirror and her wand to comb her hair into some semblance of acceptability. “I want you to stay here. He might try to strike at you while I’m busy dealing with this.”

Lucius sighed and pulled the blankets up to his chest. “Stay safe,” he whispered.

Narcissa gave him a tender smile and leaned over to kiss him. “You as well,” she said, and raised some of the strongest wards she knew behind her as she left. She hadn’t made all this progress in freeing her husband and getting him back to normal only to lose him to a madman with no sense of taste.

But when she emerged from her quarters, Minerva was already waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She held her lit wand in hand as if she didn’t feel safe without it, and her face was grim and wan in its radiance.

“Minerva?”

“I’m sorry, Narcissa. You’re too late.”

“ _Do_ explain what you mean by that.”

“This time, Voldemort put that green lightning bolt above the corpse of Amelia Bones. She was the most popular candidate for Minister. The public is screaming. The Aurors have already arrested Harry.”


	10. Part Ten

Narcissa strode into the Ministry, moving with a calm pace, and looking neither right nor left. She still wasn’t surprised when Aurors fell into place on either side of her. They didn’t look at her, either. They simply escorted her to the lifts, and then rode in one of them with her up to the Acting Minister’s office.

It turned out that the only inhabitant of it at the moment was Rufus Scrimgeour. He sighed when he saw her, and braced himself as if he assumed that he was going to receive some sort of kick in the groin. “Yes, Mrs. Malfoy?”

“Why are you here? Are you Acting Minister?”

Scrimgeour shook his head. “I was nursing some ambitions in that direction, but…with our best bet for that position dead, it seems foolish to do.”

“I want to know who ordered the arrest of my son.”

Scrimgeour blinked. “I was unaware that Draco Malfoy had been arrested.”

His confusion seemed genuine enough that Narcissa held herself back from snapping, but the restraint was a bare thread. “Harry Potter is my foster son. He was arrested a few hours ago on the word of a _fool_ who assumed that a distraction in the sky next to the Dark Mark means that he murdered Amelia Bones.”

Scrimgeour shook his head again, more slowly. “I’m aware that some Aurors did that, but I didn’t give the order. As far as I know, that came from Auror Williams’s office.”

“The name is not familiar to me.”

“An, ah, supporter of Minister Fudge,” said Scrimgeour. “His apparent pick for his next Undersecretary, but then Fudge lost power. Williams remained, however. And it seems that he has some kind of grudge against Mr. Potter. As well as against your husband.” Scrimgeour was watching her closely. “He’s rather a fanatic against Death Eaters, in fact.”

“Or former ones? Or Imperiused ones? I’ll thank you to remember that my husband was acquitted of anything more egregious than a few foolish decisions during the last war, Auror Scrimgeour.”

That got her a look of polite disbelief, but Scrimgeour nodded. “Of course. But it doesn’t matter. If they had a Dark Mark on their arm or they still do or they’re associated with someone who did or does, then Auror Williams wants them gone. I think that it’s a foolish move, but on the other hand, there will be people baying for the boy’s blood soon enough. This might actually be the best protection for him, in Ministry custody.”

Narcissa held back her immediate response, as it seemed she had been doing since Minerva first told her Harry had been arrested. She gave a slow nod. “But I want it understood that he is not guilty.”

“Auror Williams isn’t going to believe that.”

“Then too bad for Auror Williams.”

Perhaps she had shown some aspect of the true self that her discipline normally guarded so fiercely, because Scrimgeour took a slow step around the desk. “Mrs. Malfoy? If you would like help, then I can give you help.”

“How? You said yourself that you’re not going to be Acting Minister.”

“Not Acting Minister in the sense of taking over the job someday, but someone needs to bring order to the chaos right now. And keep murder from happening.” Scrimgeour narrowed his eyes a little. “Even if sometimes, the murder is justified. Auror Williams is a fool.”

“You are welcome to accompany me, Rufus. And to call me Narcissa.” Now that the first burning around the edges of her vision had receded, Narcissa could see the benefits of such an alliance. “Perhaps someone from the Ministry will listen better to someone from the Ministry.”

“Er, yes.”

Rufus still eyed her warily as they walked towards the lifts again. Narcissa showed him a faint corner of a smile. “What, Rufus? You don’t think that a mother would be fierce in defense of her child?”

She could see him relaxing, convincing himself that that was all he had seen, not a glimpse of a dark power that could have destroyed him and kept moving without looking back. If that was what he needed to think, Narcissa did not begrudge it to him. She had been foolish, in fact, showing so much of herself and expecting it to pass unnoticed.

She need not warn her prey or potential allies who might also become potential enemies if they saw how strong her impulse to vengeance was. She would wait, and then she would strike, and that would be the end of it.

*

“You cannot see Mr. Potter.”

“He is a minor child, and I am his mother.” For the first time Narcissa had a reason to be grateful that Harry’s seventeenth birthday would not be until July. She wound her hands together and looked full into Williams’s face. Henry Williams, that was his name, a first one so similar to Harry’s and yet nothing like him at all. “You would deny me access to him? He probably does not even understand what he has been arrested for. I merely wish to speak to him, comfort him, and reassure him that things will be all right.”

“He committed murder, madam. How is _that_ all right?”

“What is the evidence that he committed murder?” Rufus asked, his voice slightly bored. He had a tight grip on his wand, but Narcissa only knew that because of how close she was pressed to his arm. “I thought a trial was necessary first no matter what happened. And where is the law that says a minor child must be confined alone, no matter how dangerous he is?”

“He is a child of _Death Eaters._ ”

“I didn’t know Lily and James Potter were Death Eaters, either. What a day of surprises this is turning out to be.”

“You know very well what I mean, Rufus!” The man leaned forwards, trembling, his hands locked on the edges of his desk. He saw Narcissa looking at them and snatched them back, but Narcissa _had_ seen. Auror Williams was old enough to be Harry’s father and to have a few lines of white in his black hair, but he was still frightened. “Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy claim that he’s their adopted son? Fine. Then he’s the child of _Death Eaters_!”

Narcissa sighed and reached for her left sleeve. That got Williams’s wand trained on her in seconds. Narcissa pretended that she hadn’t seen it—that really was the best tactic for all concerned—and continued rolling up her sleeve. “There,” she said, as she exhibited her unmarked left arm. “Now that you know I’m not a Death Eater, may I visit my child?”

“ _Finite Incantatem_!”

All of them paused. The Dark Mark failed to blossom into existence on Narcissa’s flesh. She nodded to Williams and stepped past him. In the end, it wasn’t that hard. He wasn’t willing to lay a hand on her, and she wasn’t afraid of him or the force of the law that he might bring to bear.

 _He seems entirely unnerved by the Dark Mark not being there,_ Narcissa thought, and while in some ways it was a shame that his fear was making him a weaker opponent, most of her rejoiced in it.

Behind Auror Williams, a short corridor led to a row of cell doors. Narcissa instinctively went to the one that had the thickest bars and the smallest window in the panel of iron. She asked, “Harry?”

“Mother?”

“Child of Death Eaters!” announced Williams behind her. Apparently, he’d had enough time to recover from his fear.

Narcissa only shook her head a little and asked, “Harry, are you well? Do you need food, or water, or a chance to come out to talk to me?”

Williams started some other tirade behind her. Narcissa was skilled at not listening when she did not wish to, and she concentrated solely on Harry. He seemed to consider it for a second, and then he said, “No, Mother. Nothing. I only want to make sure that you’re all right, and that you can tell people the truth.”

To Narcissa, the message was clear. _Don’t break me out. Take a while. Make them hurt._

“If you think that the Ministry is going to stand by as your Death Eater foster mother _lies_ for you—”

“Shut up, you fool,” Rufus told Williams. His voice was deeper than Narcissa had known it could go. “You’ve already seen that she doesn’t have the Dark Mark. If you won’t shut up for our good, do it for your own. You know that Malfoys don’t forget a debt.”

Narcissa wanted to smile, but she kept the impulse under control. _They learned that from the Blacks,_ she thought calmly, and she faced the cell door again. “If they don’t feed you or give you water, Harry, then tell me. You can concentrate hard enough on your distress that I’ll feel it.” And that was true, thanks to a few spells she had placed on Harry years ago, spells unbreakable by anything except one of them dying.

“Thank you, Mother.”

“Of _course_ we are going to feed him and give him water! We aren’t You-Know-Who’s forces.”

“Do forgive me, Auror Williams,” Narcissa said, and kept her voice as cold as possible while she stepped away from the cell door. “From the way that you were ranting about how inhuman you find Voldemort’s forces, and acting as though you believe a sixteen-year-old committed murder with no proof, I wasn’t sure about your sanity.”

“ _Mrs. Malfoy._ ”

Narcissa took no note of his stiff face and tone. “I trust that you are going to take good care of my son,” she told Rufus. “If I hear differently, then I think you know who I will be visiting first.”

Rufus only nodded. Auror Williams pointed a finger at her and demanded, “Threatening the Head of the Auror Department? If you had any _idea_ —”

“I think I have a very good idea,” Narcissa said, and left the prison corridor without waiting for the Aurors to catch up. Her mind was skipping ahead, considering what would be the most urgent thing to do other than reassuring Draco and Lucius that Harry was well. She could confront other students or Ministry flunkies, of course, but she was reluctant to do so unless they began their own rumors. She had more pressing concerns.

Such as how to remove Harry from the cells in such a way that no one would doubt what had happened, and she would show her displeasure, and she would ensure that no one—such as Henry Williams—would be able to hurt Harry before that happened.

Narcissa smiled. Well, she had always enjoyed a challenge.

*

“But doesn’t he have to have done _something_ , if the Ministry is going to arrest him?”

Narcissa halted behind one of the walls that formed the corner. She recognized the voice that was speaking: Miss Abbott’s, the same student Narcissa had given detention to and who had challenged Harry to a wizard’s duel. And Narcissa had her suspicions about who Miss Abbott was talking to, but she wanted to wait and hear what would happen next, without her interference.

“Because the Ministry is always right?” Draco made a disgusted sound. “ _Think_ about it, Abbott. Last year, the Minister was denying that You-Know-Who is back. Even though he knew a bunch of students here had seen him. Does that make it sound as if the Ministry always knows what it’s doing?”

“But Minister Fudge is gone now. I thought that meant—things would get better.”

Narcissa turned so that she could see around the corner without revealing any sign of her own presence, including her shadow. Abbott stood there with her head bowed, shivering a little as if she imagined that would clear up the confusion in her head. Draco faced her, his face polished and shining and neutral.

 _I am so proud of you,_ Narcissa thought. Draco was far more distraught at Harry’s absence than Lucius was, but her husband did not have so good a mask.

“Maybe things will get better if people work for change,” Draco finally allowed. Abbott looked up at him, and Narcissa smiled. Her blood son was a much better leader than Harry, or would be when he grew into trust of his own abilities. Harry was impatient of politics, and it showed. Few people would trust him when he was that openly impatient. “But they won’t if we sit back and whine and cry and trust the Ministry to be infallible.”

“So you don’t think Potter did it.”

“Of course not. This is such a _transparent_ tactic for You-Know-Who to use.” Even Draco’s use of Voldemort’s sobriquet was calculated, Narcissa thought. He said “Voldemort” aloud in the privacy of her quarters, but he knew that if he said it now, Abbott would focus too much on the name and not on what he was saying. “Harry wouldn’t leave a lightning bolt floating above a corpse, and he wouldn’t have killed someone who could actually be his political ally and make the Ministry better.”

_True. He would have killed them in a much more subtle way, and then not an ally who had done nothing to deserve it._

There was a long, shuddering breath, and then Abbott muttered, “You sound convincing, Malfoy. Really convincing. I’ll—I’ll think about it. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.”

“Any time, Miss Abbott.”

Even that sounded lofty. Narcissa was smiling as she slammed herself under a hasty Disillusionment Charm. Abbott turned the corner and walked past her without noticing, her head bowed and a faint frown playing around the corners of her mouth. Narcissa waited a few beats to give Abbott time to disappear and her son to recover, then stepped out to face him.

Draco’s gaze was locked on her at once, or rather on the faint shimmer of movement and changing color that the Disillusionment Charm let him see. He didn’t relax until Narcissa took the spell off, but then he sighed and shook his head. “What do you think, Mother? Did I do it as well as I could have?”

He was restraining himself from asking after Harry. Again Narcissa couldn’t help but smile, and she reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “You did it perfectly. We need more people to be in support of Harry as the Ministry tries to blame him for this. And Miss Abbott is a close friend of Susan Bones. She may be able to get past the defensiveness and grief that I’m sure the girl feels now that her aunt is dead.”

Draco blinked. “I didn’t think of that. Poor Susan.” He went on before Narcissa could startle at the compassion. “And—how is he?”

“They have him in a cell,” Narcissa said. “An ordinary cell in the Ministry, nowhere near Dementors.” She waited for Draco’s relieved sigh to pass over, and then added, “They didn’t appear to be starving him or keeping him from drinking, either. He seemed calm, and he asked me to leave him there. I think that we need to wait and remember that right now, justice is the most important thing, and vengeance can be delayed if we need it to be.”

Draco nodded slowly. His eyes were shimmering with a fire that Narcissa had seen more often in Harry’s eyes than in his. “If we have to wait, then we wait.” He paused and stepped out from under her hand. “But, Mother? I’m looking forward to the day when we don’t have to wait anymore.”

Narcissa smiled. “I think everyone in our family could say the same, Draco.”

*

“I—I am not sure what use I can be of to you, now that I am suffering from this—illness.”

Narcissa gave Idunna a faint smile. “I wanted you to analyze the Dark magic the Ministry claims they found in the lightning bolt floating over Madam Bones’s body. That ought to tell us whether it was the same magic that created the Horcrux or not. And if it is—”

“Then that would prove that your son was influenced by the Horcrux!”

Narcissa stared at Idunna, who finally seemed to notice Narcissa’s gaze was wintry instead of celebratory. She straightened up, frowning. “What other conclusion would it be possible to draw?”

“That my son had not cast the lightning bolt? It is a simple ploy to make it seem as if Voldemort has my son as an ally, when in reality he is trying to frame him.” Narcissa had sometimes wondered during the first war why Voldemort was able to gain such ground when his tactics were so violent and bloody, but now she understood. It was not so much that Voldemort was a tactical genius as that the wizarding public was bloody _stupid._

“We cannot discount the possibility that they may be working together. I know that you are reluctant to think so, Professor Malfoy, but that may be the truth, and you need to face it.”

“I will ask that you research the matter and find the truth,” Narcissa said coldly, and waited through a few more inane comments until Idunna left. Then she sat back in her chair, shaking her head.

No matter the fact that Narcissa had hoped to use Idunna to hunt a few more Horcruxes, she was nearing the end of her usefulness.


	11. Part Eleven

“But what are you going to _do_ to the Ministry, Narcissa? Particularly if Harry wants you to leave him where he is for now?” Lucius’s voice was bewildered, and his hands slid gently across her skin as if he thought he could soothe her back into sleep.

Narcissa propped herself up and smiled at him as his eyes followed the cascade of her blonde hair down her shoulder. “I found out why Auror Williams hates Death Eaters so much.”

“One of them killed his family?”

“No. That is what the _official_ record says, but I found some names in that official record that I knew. And I went to them, and they talked.” Narcissa pulled a bronze knife from her wrist sheath and hurled it so that it stuck in the wall, quivering. “It was very effective, what I did to them.”

Lucius flinched from her. Narcissa looked back at him, blinking. “What is it, my love?”

“You—had that knife in bed with us all the time? And I never noticed?”

“Well, the wrist-sheath is charmed to be unnoticeable,” Narcissa said demurely, but she smiled at him. She could feel his _real_ reaction underneath the blankets. “No, I managed to find out that Williams’s sister was a Death Eater. She was the one who killed their parents, not some random stranger.”

“And—no one noticed the Dark Mark on her arm when she was sentenced to Azkaban?” Lucius’s voice was distracted as he reached up and ran his fingers through her hair. Narcissa stretched and shut her eyes. In a moment, she would let them have what they both wanted.

“She wasn’t sentenced,” Narcissa murmured, her eyes closed. “They found her dead next to her parents, and then her _dear_ brother put in a great deal of work and money and favor-trading to have the Dark Mark hushed up. She was listed as another victim of the Williams Massacre. No one I encountered knew for sure, due to a lack of witnesses, but it’s highly likely her brother killed her.”

“And then acted as if it was all Death Eaters.” Lucius tugged on her hair. “I could almost admire the man. Er—do you have any other knives?”

“You never know, my love. Do _you_?”

Lucius gave a faint growling moan under his breath and pounced on her. Narcissa let him roll her over, and kissed him.

Then they began to do other things that need not relate to the Ministry or her planned vengeance, and Narcissa entertained Lucius with the many unexpected surprises that she _did_ have on her person.

*

“We are here to begin the trial of Harry James Potter for the murder of Madam Amelia Bones, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and candidate for Minister of Magic.”

Auror Williams made his voice as sonorous as he could, but Narcissa was still unimpressed, especially since she had spent time with true masters of that kind of speech. They were in the largest courtroom the Wizengamot ever met in, with purple drapes hanging on the walls and a golden sunburst glowing on the ceiling, which itself was made of frosted glass. There were lots of chairs for witnesses, which were like the polished oaken pews that Narcissa had once seen in a Muggle church where she had killed a target, and galleries of white marble for the Wizengamot members.

Auror Williams stood in front of the galleries with Harry in the prisoner’s chair next to him. Since Harry was still underage, there were no chains on his arms. That made Narcissa happy. It was one less insult that she would have to punish. It also looked as though Harry had been fed regularly during the days that he had spent in confinement.

That might be the only thing that would keep the Ministry standing, at the end of the day.

“And what does the defendant have to say for himself?” asked Griselda Marchbanks, one of the elder members of the Wizengamot. She leaned forwards as if the thick lenses she wore would let her see the expression on Harry’s face in finer detail.

Harry looked up. He had the calm, blank expression on his face that Narcissa had had to drill with him to achieve. It came much easier to Draco. “Not guilty.”

“He _is_ ,” Auror Williams promptly insisted. “There will be evidence shown that—”

“You forget yourself, Henry,” said Rufus Scrimgeour from the side of the room. He had the same sour expression on his face that he had worn in all the newspaper photographs Narcissa had seen of him in the last few weeks, but his gaze was keen and cutting. He had nodded to acknowledge her, Lucius, and Draco when they first came in, with Minerva following close behind them. “You spoke. Now it is the Wizengamot’s turn to speak.”

Auror Williams fell back, flushing. Narcissa smiled at Rufus, and he nodded to her again without changing his expression.

“Yes, indeed.” Madam Marchbanks shifted her weight in her chair. “Tell us what evidence there is that Harry James Potter committed this murder.”

Auror Williams’s presentation of “evidence” was all about the lightning bolt found floating above Bones’s body, of course. He brought in witnesses who had seen it. One averred that it was “just the color of Potter’s eyes,” which got him questioned and sharply dismissed by the Wizengamot when it became clear that he’d never seen Harry’s eyes at close range.

Narcissa kept her smirk to herself.

“And the evidence for the defense?” Madam Marchbanks finally asked.

Minerva stood, but Williams jumped in before she could say anything. “There can be none! The boy is a murderer, attempting to shield himself with the help of _Death Eaters_!”

“Come say that to my face, Henry Williams!” Minerva folded her arms and glared at the boy. “I faced you down when you tried to whinge at me about deserving a higher mark than Acceptable in Transfiguration, and I can do it now!”

A heavy chuckle moved around the courtroom, and Narcissa smiled at Minerva. She knew there were other reasons that Minerva had chosen to come, but just at the moment, she couldn’t think of anyone else who could have contributed so heavily to Harry’s defense.

 _Well. To his_ legal _defense._

Minerva turned to face the Wizengamot and managed to dip her head without ever conveying that she was going to degrade herself by something like a bow. “I am the Headmistress of Hogwarts. If you know anything about the responsibility the office entails, you know that I have to be aware if a student actually leaves the walls at night.”

“I do know that,” said Madam Marchbanks. “But how does it alert you? Surely it can’t enable you to catch absolutely every student?”

“Not always catch them. But I know where they’ve gone, and how they’ve left—by Floo, or through a passage in the walls, or the front doors. It’s damn annoying when people decide they want to snog on the grounds instead of in the castle,” Minerva declared, and the Wizengamot chuckled again. “The point is, the castle doesn’t tell me names. But it wakes me instantly, and it tells me the House and the year and sex of the person who left. _That_ much it can do, thanks to the Houses being in such different places in the school and each year and sex sleeping in a different room.”

“And so?” Williams prodded, although from the way he’d tensed, he’d seen where Minerva was heading with this. Narcissa would have been a little disappointed if he hadn’t. She wanted _some_ intelligence in an opponent.

“There were no Gryffindor fifth-year boys out of the school the night Madam Bones was killed,” Minerva said simply. “Nor even in the corridors. The portraits would have alerted me of that. Mr. Potter could not have left the school after dark that night.”

Madam Marchbanks nodded slowly. “That is valuable evidence, Headmistress. Thank you.”

“No, it isn’t!” Williams snapped at once. “All he had to do was leave the castle _before_ it got dark and then hide somewhere and wait for his chance! Or even Apparate to where he knew the Death Eaters were meeting!”

“As it happens,” said Minerva, her face and voice so chill that Narcissa promised herself to revise the memory later so that she could see what those expressions looked like on someone else’s face, “Mr. Potter was at dinner that night. Which takes place _after dark_ , this time of the year. He would have been missed. He is _quite_ the famous and noticeable inhabitant of the Gryffindor table at this point.”

Narcissa darted a glance over at Harry. He gave her one that was full of quiet amusement, and went back to watching as Williams almost hopped with indignation.

“You don’t know that that wasn’t someone Polyjuiced as him or _glamoured_ as him, even! Headmistress, you _can’t_ know!”

“There is, in fact,” Narcissa interrupted softly, “an easy method of setting Auror Williams’s mind at ease. I would permit the use of Veritaserum, if my son agrees, and if the questions are carefully restricted to that specific night and _nothing else_.” She stared straight at Williams as she spoke.

Williams turned red in the face as he looked at her. “You know that questions like that are not usual procedure, Mrs. Malfoy.”

“Why not? They should be.” Lucius achieved the tone of boredom that Narcissa never could have, not at the moment. “Many trials would be much shorter if they were.” He examined his fingernails, which Narcissa thought were growing better since she had destroyed so much of the Dark Mark. “I give my permission, too, as Harry Potter’s foster father,” he added, apparently not thinking anyone would need it when Narcissa had spoken.

Narcissa squeezed his knee as a reward, out of sight.

“Does Mr. Potter consent to the use of Veritaserum?” asked Rufus, and he looked straight at Harry. “He will have to.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said, and his face was downcast and modest. They really had trained hard on that part of the discipline, to make Harry a better liar than he’d been. “If it would help, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.” He flashed the courtroom a nervous smile, and then spent most of the time looking down again.

Despite Williams making enraged noises, the Veritaserum was fetched. Narcissa, meanwhile, closed her eyes and began to gather up the magic that she had worn into the courtroom in the form of jewelry, unnoticeable to the wards that hovered everywhere to detect dangerous weapons. The pendant around her neck heated. The rings on her fingers chimed softly. Minerva gave her a sidelong look.

 _She would have noticed, along with my family, that I never wear this much ordinarily, but what reason did she have to alert the Ministry?_ Narcissa breathed in and out, and still the magic rose and rose in her blood. Normally, she would never have done this. It would leave her exhausted afterwards, and a good assassin was never exhausted, not when she might have to move quickly any minute.

For now, she would need to leave the duty of protecting her when this was done to her husband and sons.

Terrifying, but it _must_ be done.

She heard the arguments Williams was trying to make, and the bustle back and forth as someone fetched Veritaserum after all. Then she opened her eyes and watched the fussy Ministry Potions brewer on his way to the defendant’s chair.

She pushed her magic out as hard as she could, and it gripped the rug beneath the Ministry brewer’s feet and tripped him. At the same time, it ensured Williams’s mouth was open, and the arc of the potion was perfect. So many coincidences, all at once, and no one must know there was anything magical about them.

Narcissa slumped over in her seat and whispered, “Why did—why did Auror Williams want to persecute my son like this?”

She spoke as though she had no idea what would happen, and managed a convincing start when Williams replied in a dull, dazed voice, “Because he was raised by Death Eaters. Death Eaters are evil.”

“Yes, I can understand, since they killed your family,” Narcissa said, and blinked a little. “But don’t you know that Harry doesn’t have the Dark Mark on his arm? Have you ever known a Death Eater who didn’t have it?’

“I knew. I have known a Death Eater who I didn’t know had it.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Malfoy!” Madam Marchbanks said sharply, but not sharply enough to cover up the answer that stumbled out of Williams’s mouth.

“My sister.”

The gasp that swept the room quieted all the attempts that Madam Marchbanks and a few other people were making to stop Narcissa from asking questions. Even the ones who had wanted to “protect” Auror Williams from being made to answer unfair questions were staring wide-eyed and avid at him now.

“Your sister was a Death Eater?” Narcissa pressed a trembling hand to her breast. It wasn’t hard to feign shock, not when she was shaking with exhaustion from the magic necessary to manipulate the situation to her best advantage.

“Yes.” Williams started sightlessly past her. Of course, with that much Veritaserum in him, he would respond only to direct questions.

At that point, Rufus thumped his cane on the floor and shouted, “We need to stop asking questions! Auror Williams never consented to answer them.” He gave Narcissa a narrow glance, and she immediately bowed her head in a way that she knew would hide her eyes.

“Of course. Forgive me, Head Auror. I grew overexcited.”

Madam Marchbanks and the others who were interested in normal procedure went back to establishing order and calling for the antidote to Veritaserum for Williams, but Narcissa knew the damage had been done. There were plenty of them now who would consider his desire to prosecute Harry less than pure.

And, for that matter, his hatred of Death Eaters was, as well.

It honestly didn’t take long after that. Williams was darting his eyes everywhere after he recovered, and he had no more questions or interruptions to offer while Narcissa, Lucius, and Draco finished presenting the rest of their evidence. Draco had been with him most of that evening and had seen no sign of Harry being magically exhausted or sneaking out of school. Narcissa reminded the Wizengamot, again, of the passionate hatred Voldemort held for Harry and vice versa, and detailed some of the times she had observed it. Lucius gave “old” observations of Voldemort, and said he was not the sort to join with an enemy who had once humiliated him.

At last Madam Marchbanks and the rest of the Wizengamot withdrew behind glass-colored spells to debate. Harry gave her a tired look. Narcissa smiled gently back. This was only the first phase of the revenge, humiliating the man who had insisted that Harry receive a full trial for an offense when he was underage. The Ministry had much more humiliation coming.

The glass-colored spells fell after remarkably little time, and Madam Marchbanks cleared her throat. “Mr. Potter, it would be easier if you had still testified under Veritaserum.”

Harry just looked at her and said nothing. Neither did Narcissa. Apparently the Aurors she had made spill the potion into Williams’s mouth had been carrying the whole of the Ministry’s supply. There was no time to get more without delaying the trial unconsciably. (And if the Wizengamot had felt that it was permissible to delay it for a _month_ while they brewed more, then Narcissa would have called on her allies with their ranks to ensure they saw it the same way she did).

“But we have come to the conclusion,” Madam Marchbanks finished, “that you are not guilty, and will therefore be released from Ministry custody and may go on attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

She still sounded unhappy, probably about the irregularities during the trial, but Narcissa couldn’t care less. She was the one who had wanted to hold this trial and who hadn’t done enough to stop Williams from interrupting. It should never have got to this point in the first place, that Harry had had to offer to testify under _Veritaserum_.

She was part of the Ministry, and they would all pay.

Finally, the Aurors gathered around Harry stepped back, and their wands pointed at the floor instead. Harry stood up and turned around, and Narcissa grabbed him and bowed her head. The exhaustion was fading. The strength of righteous anger was burning it out of her veins as if she had been doused with a potion.

“You are all right.”

“I’m fine.” Harry’s hands tightened on her arms as Draco came up to hug him from behind, and Minerva hovered nearby as if to approve their return to the school. “But I am going to teach them a lesson for this, Mother.”

His vow was soft enough that not even Draco could hear it. Narcissa stroked his cheek. “I never doubted it for a minute.”

And she made her own vow as they stood there.

_Everyone who touches my sons from now on will die._

**The End.**


End file.
